Arthur Waley

“It is in general the unexplored that attracts us.”

“Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow.”

“Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.”

“I would rather be dead.”

“Anyone with a good classical education could learn Chinese by himself without difficulty.”

“When translating prose dialogue one ought to make the characters say things that people talking English could conceivably say. One ought to hear them talking, just as a novelist hears his characters talk.”

“I have not used rhyme, because what is really, in the long run, of most interest to American readers is what the poems say; and if one uses rhyme, it is impossible not to sacrifice sense to sound.”

“Since the classical language has an easy grammar and limited vocabulary, a few months should suffice for the mastering of it.”

“To the European poet the relation between man and woman is a thing of supreme importance and mystery. To the Chinese, it is something commonplace, obvious—a need of the body, not a satisfaction of the emotions.”