"Empire of the Sun" Quotes

One day the atomic bomb would fall on their raw, atomic sun.

They didn't recognize Jim and he walked close to them, looking at their hands: these apes would attack Shanghai one day with their primate fingers.

Jim would never forget how he had waited for one of them to touch him: they never did.

Men in ties came and began to question Jim at length, poking at his mind like dinner guests turning a peach in a bowl.

What amazed Jim more than anything was the failure of all those around him to recognize their captor.

The big boys bucked and rolled, fought in the alley beyond the men's washroom and, when they broke through, fled among the corpses on the beach.

Jim had seen some horses die, but never one age with such dignity.

Jim grew closer to Basie, who acted as if he were dying - just like Jim's father.

The real war was like the hospitals, you limped along until someone put you down.

The curtains in the first-class cars of the troop train whipped open, and American faces stared out like figures on playing cards thrown into the wind.