45. Moving is such a hassle! But then I remember you once said: Every time I moved before, I complained endlessly, but after the move, I always felt: It's good that I moved! And that gave me some comfort.
53. When you truly love something, you will discover how weak and powerless language can be. There is always a barrier between words and feelings.
10. We can never go back. (From "Half a Lifetime's Edges")
47. The small balcony of your bedroom looks like a corner of Mount Lu, and also like a miniature world in a pot.
6. A woman, if she doesn't get the love from the opposite sex, then she won't get the respect from her own sex either. That's how cheap women are. ("The Love of a City Under Siege")
1. The most distant distance in the world is not the distance between life and death, nor is it being far apart, but rather standing right in front of you, and you don't know that I love you.
Affection is a responsibility I cannot bear, and sweet talk is merely occasionally fulfilled rumors.
18. Shijun, we can never go back. (The core, most touching, and most helpless sentence in "Half a Lifetime's Edges")
The art of living, there's a part of it I'm not incapable of appreciating. I understand how to watch the clouds of July, listen to Scottish soldiers play the bagpipe, enjoy rocking chairs in the wind, eat salted peanuts, admire neon lights on rainy nights, and reach out from a double-decker bus to pluck green leaves from treetops. In places where there is no interaction with others, I am filled with the joy of life. But I can't overcome this gnawing little frustration every day; life is a beautiful robe, crawling with fleas. ("The Genius Dream" written by a 17-year-old girl student at a church middle school)
Doing something for others, and having a bit of resentment about it, makes life meaningful, otherwise it's too empty.
Perhaps every man has had two such women, at least two. If he marries the red rose, eventually, the red turns into a spot of mosquito blood on the wall, while the white remains the bright moonlight before the bed. If he marries the white rose, the white becomes a grain of rice stuck on his clothes, while the red remains a mole of cinnabar on his chest.
26. In this world we live in, most things go beyond our understanding.
56. Some writers write about food only picking what they like. I deliberately write about what I dislike, such as noodles (quick and economical), tea eggs, and pig knuckles.
63. Originally, I thought the publication of this book wouldn't make me as happy as the first time I published a book, but now I'm just as happy. I'm so glad you're here, otherwise who would I tell?
3. I will wither away. Zhang Ailing wrote in her farewell letter to Hu Lancheng.
36. Books are the best friends. The only drawback is that they deepen my nearsightedness, but it's worth it.
34. Things you want to do always find the time and opportunity; things you don't want to do always find excuses.
12. Before love comes, days pass without any attachment; the most painful thing is no more than exams and tests. At the time, it seemed like a lot of pressure, but looking back, it was so trivial.
5. Then one day, you no longer love each other. Two people who were once very close become distant, even more distant than before.
18. Love will end when it is destined to end. By then, you won't be able to avoid putting a period even if you don't want to.
Too large clothing has another special allure; walking, one wave subsides and another rises. Where there are people, it's the person trembling; where there are no people, it's the clothes shaking. It's insubstantial yet mysterious.
19. The same person cannot give you the same pain over and over again. When he repeatedly hurts you, the wound gets used to it, the sensation numbs. No matter how many times he harms you afterward, it will never hurt as much as the first time.
67. If you die, my story ends. If I die, your story still has a long way to go.
69. Love makes one forget time, and time makes one forget love.
58. Writing a novel requires a thorough understanding of the entire situation (including all details of characters and background); otherwise, it feels like synthetic fiber, not real.
22. When love arrives, it is certainly joyful. However, this joy requires giving, as well as learning to accept disappointment, pain, and farewells. From then on, life is no longer pure.
55. Memory is like water in the palm of your hand; whether you spread it out or tightly hold it, it will eventually flow cleanly through your fingers.
22. I like money because I haven't suffered its hardships, so I don't know its bad sides, only its benefits.
22. Emotions are difficult to handle; they cannot be put in the fridge to preserve indefinitely without going bad.
I found out I can't peel apples. After great effort, I learned to mend socks. I fear barber shops, dread visitors, and hate trying on clothes at tailors. Many have tried to teach me knitting, but none succeeded. Having lived in a room for two years, when asked where the doorbell is, I am still clueless. I take a rickshaw to the hospital daily for injections for three months straight, yet I still don't know the road. In short, in real society, I am nothing but a waste.
52. Life's regrets: (1) Crabapple blossoms have no fragrance; (2) Gourami fish have too many bones; (3) Cao Xueqin's "Dream of the Red Chamber" is incomplete; (4) Gao E's changes are unforgivable. Note: The first three sentences were used in an article titled "Dream of the Red Chamber Unfinished," almost deleted during recopying. Later, I said: If you don't use them, I will. Ai Ling ended up using them.
26. The greatest happiness in life is discovering that the person you love loves you back.
31. Colds are inherently melancholic diseases.
66. Hearing some things, seemingly unrelated, will twist several times in my heart until they lead to thoughts of you.
54. Forgetting is our irreversible fate. Everything is like misaligned drawings. The past cannot return. Thus, gradually extends, slightly diverging. Perhaps what we should forget are those things that have diverged.
5. "Born together, dying together, holding hands forever" is always the saddest poem... Birth, death, and farewells are all major events, not subject to our arrangements. Compared to external forces, we humans are so small, so insignificant! Yet we insist on saying: I will always be with you, we will never separate. As if we could control it ourselves. ("The Love of a City Under Siege" spoken by Fan Liuyuan to Bai Liusu)
21. Loving someone is hard, but giving up on someone you love is even harder.
51. I look at you smiling, silent, content, lost... So I follow your happiness and sadness, but I remain anchored in the present while you forever stay in the past.
74. Love is originally drinking poison wine with a smile.
9. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone. Excerpted from Zhang Ailing's novel "Flower Withering"
76. I stood on the balcony, under the dark blue moonlight, looking at that photograph. The smile in the photo seemed to have a symbol of disdain, but within that gaze, there was still an unspoken affection for this world.
Books are the best friends. The only flaw is that they worsen my nearsightedness, but it's worth it.
39. Meeting, either it's too late, or it's too early.
If one really self-harms, death might end it all, but life is scarier than death. Life can infinitely develop, getting worse and worse, becoming unbearable, worse than the initially imagined worst state.
In this world, no kind of emotion is free from scars.
93. "Born together, dying together, holding hands forever" is a sad poem, yet its attitude toward life is so certain. I don't like grandeur. I prefer tragedy, even more so desolation. Grandeur is mere force, lacking beauty, seemingly devoid of humanity. Sadness is like the contrast of bright red and vivid green, a strong contrast.
69. Even treasures collected at home need to be taken out periodically for others to admire and evaluate, then one will rediscover their value.
For young people, three or five years can be a lifetime.
30. Humanity is the most interesting book, a lifetime of reading never finishes.
People ruin things because they are unhappy inside, a form of compensation.
I love you, and for your happiness, I am willing to give up everything, including you.
I want you to know, in this world, there is always someone waiting for you, no matter when, no matter where, you know, there is always such a person.
86. Too large clothing has another special allure, walking, one wave subsides and another rises. Where there are people, it's the person trembling; where there are no people, it's the clothes shaking. It's insubstantial yet extremely mysterious.
73. Love will end when it is destined to end. By then, you won't be able to avoid putting a period even if you don't want to.
45. Those carvings of love on chair backs, will they be like flowers blooming on cement, growing into a lonely forest without wind?
20. Love, is originally drinking poison wine with a smile.
42. After leaving, I hope you don't forget one thing: don't forget to miss me. When you miss me, don't forget that I am also missing you.
79. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't miss you, I wouldn't envy the opposite sex around you, I wouldn't lose confidence and fighting spirit, I wouldn't suffer. If I could stop loving you, how nice that would be.
65. I didn't have nice clothes to wear when I was young, then there was a time I wore extravagantly bright clothes, earning the reputation of wearing strange outfits. After wearing them, it's over, and I don't think about it now.
Kind-hearted people are always suffering, and that burden of sorrow seems innate, thus only to endure.
Huge selves and this decadent yet beautiful world, two corpses tied back-to-back, you pulling me down, I pulling you down, sinking downward.
7. Books are the best friends. The only flaw is that they deepen my nearsightedness, but it's worth it. Excerpted from "Zhang Ailing Quotes"
49. You will never see my loneliest moments, because only when you are not around am I the loneliest.
You die, my story ends. If I die, your story continues.
23. For those who don't know how to talk, clothes are a language, a pocket-sized drama carried around. Excerpted from Zhang Ailing's essay "Changing Clothes Records"
41. Autumn colors are the same north and south, but human hearts differ deeply. This is my grandfather's poem.
28. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't miss you, I wouldn't envy the opposite sex around you, I wouldn't lose confidence and fighting spirit, I wouldn't suffer. If I could stop loving you, how nice that would be.
35. Loving but not being in love, being in love but not loving.
Women haven't yet obtained their own property, their own share of worries and joys, and often have that careful waiting expression.
12. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone. Excerpted from Zhang Ailing's novel "Flower Withering"
33. If emotions and time could be lightly torn and thrown into the sea, then I would willingly sink silently in the deep. Your words, I love to hear, but I don't understand; my silence, you wish to see, but you don't comprehend.
71. Apartments are the most reasonable escape places. People tired of big cities often yearn for peaceful towns, longing to retire and keep bees, grow vegetables, and enjoy a little leisure, not knowing that buying half a pound of cured meat in the countryside can cause much gossip, while on the top floor of an apartment building, you can change clothes by the window without worry! ("Fun in Apartment Living" Shanghai, Changde Road 195, Changde Apartments, formerly known as Edinburgh House. In 1939, Zhang Ailing lived in Room 51 with her mother and aunt; in 1942, they moved into Room 65 (currently Room 60), until 1948.)
59. After finishing a chapter, I am happy and want to call you immediately, but it's not yet dawn, inconvenient to disturb your sleep. Unfortunately, the happiness soon passes, and I must force myself to start writing a new chapter.
33. Talent, appearance, virtue are all similarly fleeting. Like xx, marrying for virtue, but the wife becomes increasingly nagging, annoying him to no end.
57. One day everything will change completely, time hasn't taught me anything, but it has taught me not to easily trust myths.
28. Memories, if they had a scent, would be the aroma of camphor, sweet and stable, like clearly remembered happiness, sweet and nostalgic, like forgotten sorrow. "Changing Clothes Records"
Among millions of people, you meet the one you are destined to meet. Among millions of years, in the boundless expanse of time, neither too early nor too late, you encounter each other and can only softly say: Oh, you're here too?
67. I like books, and when I read them, I am particularly cautious, wrapping them in paper to prevent damaging the cover. For books I dislike, I don't wrap them. I don't like this novel, but since the cover is indeed ugly, I still wrapped it.
25. You have been unloved, which is why you will cherish the one who loves you in the future.
25. Women... Women talk about men, think about men, complain about men, forever and ever.
25. You will never understand my sorrow, just like daylight doesn't understand the darkness of night.
8. Loving someone shouldn't bring pain. Loving someone may bring prolonged pain, but the joy he gives is the greatest happiness in the world.
14. The beginning and ending of relationships, the intensity and subtlety of them, are not within our control. What we can do is cherish the brief moments when we meet under certain circumstances.
21. Loving someone can make one humble to the point of disappearing into dust, and then bloom like a flower.
34. Some books I like to read, some I don't... like O. Henry's works... just like food tastes that don't suit my palate. I like reading Zhang Henshui's books because they are moderate. High like "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Shanghai Flowers," reading them makes me hesitant to write. Low like xx, xx, reading them makes me feel nauseous. I also like reading novels like "Xiepu Chao." However, social novels differ greatly. I don't like reading Wang Xiaoyi's books because they lack realism, though written fluently, I'd rather read novels like idle grass and wild flowers.
61. The most annoying people, if studied carefully, turn out to be just pitiful.
46. Some things left unsaid, let them be.
Because of understanding, there is compassion.
41. Kind-hearted people are always suffering, and that burden of sorrow seems innate, thus only to endure.
14. You ask if loving you is worth it, but you should know, love is not about asking if it's worth it. ("Half a Lifetime's Edges")
30. Passionate fire should not reignite. Reigniting would erase all the beautiful memories. If we hadn't met again, perhaps I