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Green Island
Shawna Yang Ryan
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Maybe this is what it meant to be a citizen of a place - bonded to each other by the histories thrust upon us.”
“We are curious creatures, we Taiwanese. Orphans. Eventually, orphans must choose their own names and write their own stories. The beauty of orphanhood is the blank slate.”
“I understand,” she says, and then she quotes Du Fu: “The country is broken, but the mountains and rivers remain.” Her eyes flash; he catches sight of the fire in this modest woman. “We are the mountains and rivers,” he says, impressed. “No matter what the country is called.”
“Once you realize all our assumptions about power are created by the powerful, you understand it must be changed. You rethink power. Not the power that is desire, or dominance. The power that is strength.”
“for Jia Bao’s storyline, I drew on the experiences of Peng Ming-Min, Henry Liu, and Chen Wen-cheng to understand the various legal and extralegal mechanisms the KMT government used to control its challengers, particularly from abroad.”
“While our friends were rioting, handcuffed and starving, in the yard, we were the ones banging on open cell doors, bellies full, crying for our freedom.”
“When I got older, I still thought I could write life. I didn't understand, as my mother had just realized that evening, that it is the other way around. And yet, here I am, still trying.”
“What’s the point?” I asked even though I didn’t expect an answer. He shook his head. “I don’t know. Power.” He took a drag on the cigarette. “To what end?”
“What is home? I wanted to ask. Haven’t I already come home?”
“We’d known enough girls jilted by Americans promising marriage and plane tickets. Two girls in my neighborhood had babies by men who had returned to the United States and left false addresses. The faces of their mixed-race kids declared their humiliation to everyone.”
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Book Keywords:
pride, cultural-identity, dignity, taiwan