Pu Songling Quotes

Pu Songling: 2 quotes0 likes

“How foolish men are, to see nothing but beauty in what is clearly evil! […] Heaven's Way has its inexorable justice, but some mortals remain foolish and never see the light!”

Pu Songling

"The Painted Skin" from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (1740), as translated by John Minford in Strange tales from a Chinese studio (2006), p. 521

“My talents are not those of Kan Pao, elegant explorer of the records of the Gods; I am rather animated by the spirit of Su Tung-P'o, who loved to hear men speak of the supernatural. I get people to commit what they tell me to writing, and subsequently I dress it up in the form of a story; thus in the lapse of time my friends from all quarters have supplied me with quantities of material, which, from my habit of collecting, has grown into a vast pile.”

Pu Songling

"Author's Own Record", trans. Herbert Allen Giles in Gems of Chinese Literature (1922), p. 235 Variant translation: With time And my love of hoarding, The matter sent me by friends From the four corners Has grown into a pile. "Author's Preface", lines 28–32, trans. John Minford in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Penguin, 2006), pp. 30–31
/ Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (1740)