Barry Hughart Quotes

#1. The problem with 'the crown jewel of Chinese literature' [Dream of the Red Chamber] is that it has two thousand pages and an equal number of characters, and the hero is an effeminate ass who should have either been spanked or decapitated, both ends being equally objectionable.

Barry Hughart

#2. The mind is a miser," he said. "Nothing is ever thrown away, and it's amazing what you can find if you dig deep enough.

Barry Hughart

#3. You can't tell somebody to kiss your ass on a scooter!

Bill Engvall

#4. The problem with poetic justice is that it never knows when to stop.

Barry Hughart

#5. The supernatural can be very annoying until one finds the key that transforms it into science," he observed mildly ... "Come on, Ox, let's go out and get killed.

Barry Hughart

#6. 'Immortality is only for the gods,' he whispered. 'I wonder how they can stand it.'

Barry Hughart

#7. Chirren is the most dangerous creatures on the earth, with the exception of young girls between the ages of fifteen and forty-two.

Walter Mosley

#8. Everybody knows that the soul of a cat is formed from the composite souls of nine debauched nuns who failed in their vows.

Barry Hughart

#9. Mystery and terror are the bulwarks of tyranny.

Barry Hughart

#10. I'm a big deal That's why I get more head than a pigtail

Nicki Minaj

#11. When you look at a Congress that has an 84 percent disapproval rating, that means that for the most part, the people of this country, and certainly California, are looking for new leadership.

Elizabeth Emken

#12. Nothing on the face of this earth - and I do mean nothing - is half so dangerous as a children's story that happens to be real...

Barry Hughart

#13. Fable has strong shoulders that carry far more truth than fact can.

Barry Hughart

#14. As I lay on my back in bed staring up at the blank, white ceiling the stillness seemed to grow bigger and bigger until I felt my eardrums would burst with it.

Sylvia Plath

#15. Yes, Father. They have the bravest hearts, the noblest souls, and the shiniest armor in all the world."
"Shiniest armor?" repeated King Ban.

Gerald Morris

#16. The emotional health of a village depended upon having a man whom everyone loved to hate, and Heaven had blessed us with two of them.

Barry Hughart

#17. Mountains have long-lost kinfolk on the other side of the Atlantic. The bloodline that marks that kinship is a vein of a green mineral called serpentine ...

Sharyn McCrumb

#18. Immortality is a meaningless word unless invulnerability goes with it.

Barry Hughart

#19. When we begin from a place of belief, no matter how small or insubstantial, we can see what was always there, hidden in plain sight.

Christie Purifoy

#20. It was quite a shock for me to discover that crime was so easy that it was boring. I reluctantly turned to scholarship.

Barry Hughart

#21. If people can see Earth from up here, see it without those borders, see it without any differences in race or religion, they would have a completely different perspective. Because when you see it from that angle, you cannot think of your home or your country. All you can see is one Earth ...

Anousheh Ansari

#22. ...Men cannot come any closer to immortality without going insane.

Barry Hughart

#23. Master Li turned bright red while he scorched the air with the Sixty Sequential Sacrileges with which he had won the all-China Freestyle Blasphemy Competition in Hangchow three years in a row.

Barry Hughart

#24. I'm also inspired by great art and people who create and contribute rather than destroy.

Raul Castillo

#25. Occasionally a moderately intelligent thought misses a turn and accidentally enters my mind

Barry Hughart

#26. Boy, just look at the soul shining through my eyes! It's like a goddamned flower!

Barry Hughart

#27. What would happen when he told the Dursleys he was going to live with the convict they'd seen on television?

J.K. Rowling

#28. I believe that listening is one of the most important skills for any teacher, parent, leader, entrepreneur or, well, just about anyone who has a pulse.

Richard Branson

#29. I worked for Xerox for 4 years and after that I knew I was never going to be a corporate person. It wasn't my environment.

Robert Kiyosaki

#30. Begin at the beginning as you understood it, proceed through the middle, continue to the end, and then stop, said Master Li, and he sauntered out to get drunk ...

Barry Hughart

#31. Miser Shen is preparing to spend the night with a goat.

Barry Hughart

#32. Show me a quest for personal immortality and I'll show you a path through a slaughterhouse, and the incense of personal divinity is the stench of other people's corpses.

Barry Hughart

#33. SuperMemo is based on the insight that there is an ideal moment to practice what you've learned. Practice too soon and you waste your time. Practice too late and you've forgotten the material and have to relearn it. The right time to practice is just at the moment you're about to forget.

Gary Wolf

#34. Blessed are the idiots, for they are happiest people on earth.

Barry Hughart

#35. To cherish perfection is to commit creative suicide, and every true artist knows that a masterpiece is an accident that should be burned.

Barry Hughart

#36. A fool will study for twenty or thirty years and learn how to do something, but a wise man will study for twenty or thirty minutes and become an expert. In this world, it isn't ability that counts, but authority.

Barry Hughart

#37. Master Li, how are we going to murder a man who laughs at axes?" I asked.
We are going to experiment, dear boy. Our first order of business will be to find a deranged alchemist, which should not be very difficult. China," said Master Li, "is overstocked with deranged alchemists.

Barry Hughart

#38. Don't be ashamed of reliving your childhood, Ox, because all of us must do it now and then to maintain our sanity.

Barry Hughart

#39. Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence.

Will Henry

#40. Error can point the way to truth, while empty-headedness can only lead to more empty-headedness or to a career in politics.

Barry Hughart

#41. Ox, at an early age a Chinese genius gazes at the path that lies ahead and reaches for a wine jar," Master Li said. "Is it any wonder that our greatest men have lurched rather than walked across the landscape as they hiccuped their way into history?

Barry Hughart

#42. Ox, what occupation is most closely linked to insanity?'
'Emperor,' I said promptly.

Barry Hughart