Quotes Archives - The Patient Poppy

April 14, 2024April 14, 2024

See the fierce power

This is a quote from the epic poem Song of Kiều by Du Nguyên, translated from the Vietnamese by Timothy Allen.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Song of Kiều – Summary

A stunning new translation of the legendary Vietnamese epic poem, now for the first time in Penguin Classics

Considered the greatest literary achievement in Vietnamese, The Song of Kieu tells the story of the beautiful Vuong Thuy Kieu, who agrees to a financially profitable marriage in order to save her family from ruinous debts, but is tricked into working in a brothel. Her tragic life involves jealous wives, slavery, war, poverty, and time as a nun. Adapted from a seventeenth-century Chinese novel, Jin Yun Qiao, written by an unknown writer under the pseudonym Qingxin Cairen, author Nguyen Du upended the plot’s traditional love story by conveying the social and political upheavals at the end of the 18th century in Vietnam.

Translated from the Vietnamese by: Timothy Allen (2019)

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

April 8, 2024April 8, 2024

Were the creator concerned….

This is a quote from the book Songs of Kabir by Kabir, translated from the Hindi by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra.

Are you familiar with Kabir’s poetry? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Songs of Kabir – Summary

Here is the book summary:

Transcending divisions of creed, challenging social distinctions of all sorts, and celebrating individual unity with the divine, the poetry of Kabir is one of passion and paradox, of mind-bending riddles and exultant riffs. These new translations by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, one of India’s finest contemporary poets, bring out the richness, wit, and power of a literary and spiritual master.

Translated by: Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

February 19, 2024February 19, 2024

When he had read all the books

This is a quote from the book Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Go Tell It On the Mountain – Summary

“Mountain,” Baldwin said, “is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else.”

Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin’s first major work, a novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy’s discovery of the terms of his identity as the son of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin’s rendering of his protagonist’s spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

January 28, 2024January 10, 2024

Love has to end

This is a quote from the book If Cats Disappeared From the World by Genki Kawamura, translated by Eric Selland.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

If Cats Disappeared From the World – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Our narrator’s days are numbered. Estranged from his family, living alone with only his cat Cabbage for company, he was unprepared for the doctor’s diagnosis that he has only months to live. But before he can set about tackling his bucket list, the Devil appears with a special offer: in exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, he can have one extra day of life. And so begins a very bizarre week . . .

Because how do you decide what makes life worth living? How do you separate out what you can do without from what you hold dear? In dealing with the Devil our narrator will take himself – and his beloved cat – to the brink. Genki Kawamura’s If Cats Disappeared from the World is a story of loss and reconciliation, of one man’s journey to discover what really matters in modern life.

Translated by: Eric Selland

More details can be found here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

January 21, 2024January 10, 2024

So desperately lonely

This is a quote from the book Babel by R.F. Kuang.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Babel – Summary

Here is the book summary:

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

More details can be found here on Goodreads and on Storygraph.

January 14, 2024January 10, 2024

This is her secret

This is a quote from the book Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Station Eleven – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Set in the days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

January 8, 2024January 8, 2024

The rising hope of adventure

This is a quote from the the collection of short stories called Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro.

Have you read this any short stories from Alice Munro? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Dance of the Happy Shades – Summary

Here is the book summary:

Alice Munro’s territory is the farms and semi-rural towns of south-western Ontario. In these dazzling stories she deals with the self-discovery of adolescence, the joys and pains of love and the despair and guilt of those caught in a narrow existence. And in sensitively exploring the lives of ordinary men and women, she makes us aware of the universal nature of their fears, sorrows and aspirations.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

January 1, 2024January 1, 2024

The snow has changed everything

This is a quote from the book The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

The Memory Police – Summary

Here is the book summary:

On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island’s inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.

When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.

A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.

Translated by: Stephen Snyder

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

December 17, 2023October 14, 2023

Such worldly extravagance

This is a quote from the book Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

One of Poland’s most imaginative and lyrical writers, Olga Tokarczuk presents us with a detective story with a twist in DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD. After her two dogs go missing and members of the local hunting club are found murdered, teacher and animal rights activist Janina Duszejko becomes involved in the ensuing investigation. Part magic realism, part detective story, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD is suspenseful and entertaining reimagining of the genre interwoven with poignant and insightful commentaries on our perceptions of madness, marginalised people and animal rights.

Translated by: Antonia Lloyd-Jones

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

December 10, 2023October 14, 2023

Love that was feverish

This is a quote from the children’s book Call of the Wild by Jack London.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Call of the Wild- Summary

Here is the book summary:

Life is good for Buck in Santa Clara Valley, where he spends his days eating and sleeping in the golden sunshine. But one day a treacherous act of betrayal leads to his kidnap, and he is forced into a life of toil and danger. Dragged away to be a sledge dog in the harsh and freezing cold Yukon, Buck must fight for his survivial. Can he rise above his enemies and become the master of his realm once again?

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

Category: Quotes

See the fierce power

Song of Kiều – Summary

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Were the creator concerned….

Songs of Kabir – Summary

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When he had read all the books

Go Tell It On the Mountain – Summary

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Love has to end

If Cats Disappeared From the World – Summary

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So desperately lonely

Babel – Summary

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This is her secret

Station Eleven – Summary

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The rising hope of adventure

Dance of the Happy Shades – Summary

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The snow has changed everything

The Memory Police – Summary

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Such worldly extravagance

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Summary

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Love that was feverish

Call of the Wild- Summary

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Song of Kiều – Summary

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Songs of Kabir – Summary

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Go Tell It On the Mountain – Summary

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If Cats Disappeared From the World – Summary

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Babel – Summary

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Station Eleven – Summary

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Dance of the Happy Shades – Summary

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The Memory Police – Summary

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Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Summary

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Call of the Wild- Summary

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