Best of An Yu's "Ghost Music"

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from the novel Ghost Music by An Yu.

Parks were my favourite places, especially the ones in the busiest districts. There was a generosity that could be felt there.

p. 75

Do we even need the truth if we have beliefs? Or, rather, do we want the truth? Isn't it the case that despair is often the result of running out of things to believe in, even though truths have always been plentiful? But when has knowing that those truths exist ever given us a sense of peace?

p. 160

When the body is ill, we take medicine and we rest. But when the mind is unwell, we believe we can fix it with sheer willpower; that the decay of the spirit is less deadly than that of the body. Whoever decided that the mind is stronger than the body?

p. 182

It was then, staring at an empty room stripped of remnants of the past, that I realised I loved Bai Yu. It wasn't romantic love. It wasn't as complicated. He made me see the simple fact that we are not tied down to this world; we are in pursuit of it. That is how I loved him.

p. 215