Sglit Quotes

“If this turns to friendship, it only means
That one of us will suffer.

That when we meet after the worst of endings,
There will only be this skein of words between us—

Most of them for boredom, fewer for loneliness—
Rising out of our mutual space of breath, leaving

Behind a bluer sky each moment of departure.
And one of us will cling on to its blue,

Hung on partings like a muted cloud, while
The other rides on a wing of word away from here.”
― Cyril Wong, Below: Absence: Poems

“She tried to remember all the times she had spoken to him. She replayed every moment she could remember at the beach last week. Not once had she led him to believe that she liked him improperly. And yet, last night, he had appeared as if she had invited him. She had given herself so willingly, so lasciviously, that he must have thought she had desired him all along. Perhaps she had, or perhaps she had not realised how pleasurable intimacy could be.”
― Mahita Vas, Rain Tree

“I remember clearly the afternoon that she stood at the corner beside the door of the tourist centre in Gdansk.”
― You Jin, In Time, Out of Place

“Any moment now, I thought, he was going to wake up. Any moment.”
― O Thiam Chin, Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Two

“They will try to ascribe a purpose to my death, as though it were a punishment, but don’t you do so, in order that I continue to live in all the shadows of your longing. I will always be in your sleep and your wakefulness. I will be with you praying, propitiating and yearning for you, in sadness, in sorrow, in dismay and in the most profound happiness.”
― Mohamed Latiff Mohamed, The Widower

“The four of us got back into the car. In an instant, I distinctly heard a “soundless music”. It was the melody of friendship, the sound of a perfectly tuned quartet who got together by chance, four hearts playing in harmony.”
― You Jin, In Time, Out of Place

“White froth bubbles from the mouth of Chow Sze Teck. The airconditioner is still running and the room is dark. Slumped over the mahogany desk in his study, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Housing is, as always, immaculately dressed.”
― Wong Souk Yee

“There were three things Gimme Lao did not know about himself.”
― Sebastian Sim, Let's Give It Up for Gimme Lao!

“Among the wartime survivors was a four-year-old Makassan girl with a large mole dangling like a pigeon egg under her left eye, who was looking for her lost parents. She was picked up by a brothel woman, but later ran away to live among street boys left homeless by the war.

They gave her the nickname Big Mole.”
― Ming Cher, Big Mole

“Former spider boys came from all walks of life—they ranged from homeless street kids and school dropouts to decent kids, but the best ones were those who had gone anywhere and everywhere to search out and capture their fighting spiders; they even ventured into dangerous bushes infested with black mambas. These boys were risk-takers and crowd-pullers, always on the move, always looking for worthy opponents with which to fight their spiders.”
― Ming Cher, Big Mole

“Many years later, Sophia will think of this night, and how close she was to tears. She will wonder how she could have allowed herself to arrive there, but also feel a twinge of loss for the girl still capable of losing control.”
― Jeremy Tiang, It Never Rains on National Day

“Pak Karman hugged his wife’s gravestone tightly. “You left without saying farewell!” The whole of the graveyard was ablaze with light.”
― Mohamed Latiff Mohamed, The Widower

“I’d thought there’d be no winter in the desert, but winter arrived anyway—silently, suddenly.”
― You Jin, Death by Perfume

“Mongkol, poor Mongkol, shedding tears.

Thinking of his smiling, comical face, and his dreams of sending his son to university, I could only lower my head in silence.

And the night continued, cold and dark, the wind frozen beyond the mountains.”
― You Jin, Death by Perfume