Chang-Rae Lee Quotes

Like love, destruction can be ecstatic.

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded.

Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs; being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears; what is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

I meet you. I remember you. Who are you? You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. How could I know this city was tailor-made for love? How could I know you fit my body like a glove? I like you. How unlikely. I like you. How slow all of a sudden. How sweet. You cannot know. You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. I have time. Please, devour me. Deform me to the point of ugliness. Why not you? Why not you in this city and in this night, so like other cities and other nights you can hardly tell the difference? I beg of you.

destruction is ultimately self-destruction.

Passion makes a person stop eating, sleeping, working, feeling at peace. A lot of people are frightened because, when it appears, it demolishes all the old things it finds in its path.

Love is familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love." -

Help means ruin and saving means slaying.

Final Ruin fiercely drives Her ploughshare o'er creation.

What we love that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love.

Knowledge, having irritated and stimulated our appetite for power, will lead us inexorably to our ruin.

There were thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. There were grief and the ruins, and you were the miracle.

I am overrun, infested with a menagerie of desires.

Only Thee That I want thee, only thee---let my heart repeat without end. All desires that distract me, day and night, are false and empty to the core. As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light, even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry ---'I want thee, only thee'. As the storm still seeks its end in peace when it strikes against peace with all its might, even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love and still its cry is ---'I want thee, only thee'.

Love is desire sustained by unfulfilment.

Love is a dangerous thing. It comes in disguise to change our life... Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted, we discover that it is all an illusion and nothing is there. Lust is a voyage to nowhere, to an empty land, but some men just love such voyages and never care about the destination. Love is a voyage too, a voyage with no destination except death, but a voyage of bliss.

I Cannot Exist Without You. I Am Forgetful Of Everything But Seeing You Again.

She thought she was independent and strong, but she got one small taste of love and she was hungrier than anyone. She was ravenous.

Destroy yourself, if you don't know!

She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation. In spirit she walks the city, traces its labyrinths, its dingy mazes: each assignation, each rendezvous, each door and stair and bed. What he said, what she said, what they did, what they did then. Even the times they argued, fought, parted, agonized, rejoined. How they’d loved to cut themselves on each other, taste their own blood. We were ruinous together, she thinks. But how else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin?

Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.

These will be my last moments of peace. . . . From now on, my love. . . will bring nothing but chaos.

Love is more cruel than lust.

And she loved a man who was made out of nothing. A few hours without him and right away she’d be missing him with her whole body, sitting in her office surrounded by polyethylene and concrete and thinking of him. And every time she’d boil water for coffee in her ground-floor office, she’d let the steam cover her face, imagining it was him stroking her cheeks, her eyelids and she’d wait for the day to be over, so she could go to her apartment building, climb the flight of stairs, turn the key in the door, and find him waiting for her, naked and still between the sheets of her empty bed.

I will be my undoing If I become my obsession.