Unsavory Elements Quotes

#1. I try not to break the rules but merely to test their elasticity.

Bill Veeck

#2. I had to pace my consumption cannily, because each time I finished what was in my bowl, someone would immediately fill it up with something else. "Eat more," they would say. "Eat more pig's ear!

Dan Washburn

#3. I have a black pair of suede Jimmy Choos. I've only worn them once to a Sony event. The heels have these arrow plates in a pattern. There's gold, black and white and they're amazing!

Jessica Mauboy

#4. Now and again we vary the route; there's nothing against it, as long as we stay within the barriers. A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, so as long as it stays inside the maze.

Margaret Atwood

#5. This communal parenting brought me out of the privacy of our foreign enclave and into the public life of the community. Here, parenting was everyone's responsibility; all adults were "aunties" and "uncles".

Aminta Arrington

#6. I needed an adult female wearing a tight sleeveless cheongsam mini-dress to help me learn Chinese. All my senses would have to focus; otherwise I would end up knowing nothing. Tracing each Chinese character upon the small of her back with my index finger was only proper way to begin a lesson.

Matt Muller

#7. I've almost never seen in China what Westerners would consider a fair fight. Somebody always pulls out a meat cleaver or picks up a brick to smash your head in. Or they simply gang up on you, like the cops were presently doing.

Rudy Kong

#8. That's the thing about Chinese mothers: hidden behind their maternal expectations and critical diatribes are women who will fight to the death for you. As soon as I called her Mama, Li-Ming would be my strongest ally for the only months I knew her.

Kaitlin Solimine

#9. The key to successful change is sensitivity towards that which is indigenous and, in the long run, diversity will always be more resilient than monoculture despite the current unsustainable trends in the opposite direction.

Jonathan Watts

#10. After he told them we were dating, which came out more like a Cultural Revolution confession than a family heart-to-heart, his father said flatly, "You can be friends with a foreign woman, but not date her.

Jocelyn Eikenburg

#11. Not sure how much longer she can continue her fight for the children or how much more of her there is to give, she pledged to keep going until she no longer can.

Kay Bratt

#12. Thinking Reports enable the prisoners to wash their brains, and become new!" he announced cheerfully. "Washing the brain is very important to your reform, and improving your real situation.

Dominic Stevenson

#13. What still runs through your mind at moments like these, even all these years into your China time, is "how can I possibly explain this to the folks back home?" Here's the other thing that you have to explain to them: things like this keep happening.

Jonathan Campbell

#14. No wonder prostitution is so rampant in China, I mused as I watched the four girls watch us: why stand on your feet all day for slave wages when you can get rich on your back?

Tom Carter

#15. Why was I still traveling? Was it purely because it was better than turning around and going home, where I would have to make grown-up choices about my future? Or was I waiting to happen across a place that would tell me to stay?

Pete Spurrier

#16. I remember looking around at the girls, the men, the drugs and the money, and wondering how long this utopia could last: the Chinese dream, in its second, prodigal generation.

Susie Gordon

#17. Self-discovery means learning to live free!

Tae Yun Kim

#18. It's the bonds forged over baijiu, more than anything else, that keep me coming back for another ganbei despite the hiccups, figurative and literal. You can learn more about someone after three shots of baijiu than in years of sober tea sipping.

Derek Sandhaus

#19. I hit him as hard as I could. His hands were full of my belongings, and every time I punched him he dropped something. I slugged him and my camera popped out; I hit him again and there was my money belt; another punch and my shorts flew up in the air.

Peter Hessler

#20. That car, as with the rest of Mr. Mao's lifestyle, was brand new. He had gotten rich, and gotten rich quick. But like the rest of his generation of Chinese Jay Gatsbys, the source of his wealth was murky.

Michael Levy

#21. Together we gazed out over corkscrew switchbacks cut through a barren, rocky landscape stretching to the horizon. It was simultaneously awesome and insane to be in this spot as a family, though, for a flicker of an instant, the lone explorer in me longed to be out there alone with just a 4x4.

Alan Paul

#22. Lies don't matter, ... There's no merit to it. It's kind of hard to entertain foolishness when it has no merit.

Jalen Rose