Lost Horizons

For he was still immensely fatigued. There was also in his nature a trait which some people might have called laziness, though it was not quite that. No one was capable of harder work,when it had to be done, and few could better shoulder responsibility; but the facts remained that he was not passionately fond of activity, and did not enjoy responsibility at all. Both were included in his job, and he made the best of them, but he was always ready to give way to anyone else who could function as well or better. It was partly this, no doubt, that had made his success in the Service less striking than it might have been. He was not ambitious enough to shove his way past others, or to make an important parade of doing nothing when there was really nothing doing. His dispatches were sometimes laconic to the point of curtness, and his calm in emergencies, though admired, was often suspected of being too sincere. Authority likes to feel that a man is imposing some effort on himself, and that his apparent nonchalance is only a cloak to disguise an outfit of well-bred emotions. With Conway the dark suspicion had sometimes been current that he really was as unruffled as he looked, and that whatever happened, he did not give a damn.
But this, too, like the laziness, was an imperfect interpretation. What most observers failed to perceive in him was something quite bafflingly simple--a love of quietness,contemplation, and being alone.

Lost Horizon

James Hilton





I will never forget the Xuelin villagers who lived in those conical straw huts. They each carried a bamboo pipe that was specific to their gender and age. Boys played loud courtship tunes on four-holed dangli, girls blew love songs on small flute-like lixi, and old women whistled simple melodies on their two note enqui. After a day on the fields, they would return to their huts, pour themselves a bowl of home-made rice wine and listen to an old man play love songs on a one stringed lute. In the morning they would run to fetch water from a village pipe, tie their babies to their backs and set off for the fields. I stayed with the village head. On my last night, his wife cooked a chicken stew. After dinner we huddled round the pot of simmering pig slops, and I asked them what they wanted most because I could not believe that life could be so simple. Almost everything they wanted I could buy in a flash. But I still did not know what I wanted. My notebook says:
Bilisong, village head, 47: I want a brick house,that keeps the rain out, like the ones in the country town.
Kangeng, Bilisong wife, 43: I want a gold tooth. (she smiles.Her teeth are perfect and white.)
Sangamu, Bilisong’s daughter, 25: A watch, and an alarm clock.
Abengyi, Sangamu’s husband, 30: When I’m rich I will buy a bicycle.
Junmei, Sangumu’s daughter, 5: I want an ice lolly.
Biniou, Sangumu’s son, 10: A dog like the frontier police have, one will do.
Eiwo, Bilisong’s daughter, 18: I don’t want anything.


Red Dust

Ma Jian



I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.

Meryl Streep

The Hours(2002)