It’s about others… It’s about them — not you. You’re done. You’ve lived your life already. Now what’s next?
– Johnny Huynh, A Chef in Brooklyn
It’s about others… It’s about them — not you. You’re done. You’ve lived your life already. Now what’s next?
– Johnny Huynh, A Chef in Brooklyn
There is some distance…
But slowly, because blood is thicker than water, we’ll eventually get close to each other again.– 刘明春, A Mom from Sichuan
Which is to say that, whatever happens, good or bad, cause for rejoicing or lament, “the world will still be round.”
– Gary Jennings in The Journeyer
The one thing I know for sure about China is that I will never know China. It’s too big, too old, too diverse, too deep. There’s simply not enough time. That’s the joy of China: facing a learning curve that’s impossibly steep.
– Anthony Bourdain in Parts Unknown (Shanghai)
[Bilbo] often used to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep and every path was its tributary. “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien in The Fellowship of the Ring
When it is over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made my life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
– Mary Oliver
It’s the least I can do to see the world with open eyes.
– Anthony Bourdain in No Reservations (Laos)
“It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more of it I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it — how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn.
Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, such as it is for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.”
– Anthony Bourdain in Parts Unknown (Peru)
“It is both exciting and humbling to see how big, how varied, how incredible this world can be. No place exemplifies this better than China.”
– Anthony Bourdain in No Reservations (China)
“China… is not a destination. It’s a life’s work — a continuing investigation, a boundless, endlessly fascinating mystery.”
– Anthony Bourdain in No Reservations (Shanghai)