Kyung-Sook Shin Quotes & Sayings

I though it was weird to see people sleeping. It scared me to see them with their eyes closed. Like they might never wake up again. — Kyung-Sook Shin

It seems that whether we are aware of it or not, memory carries a dagger in its breast. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Once her tears started, she always had hard time stopping, to the extent that i wondered how she was able to hold them in the first place. — Kyung-Sook Shin

A house takes on the characteristics of its occupant, and, depending on who lives in it, it can become a very good house or a very strange house. — Kyung-Sook Shin

You could say that he split his day in half on order to travel between east and west. Some say that it shows how refined he was, but I see it as mental struggle to not be sucked under by either side. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Myungsuh scratched his head and smiled. It was a bashful smile, but it spread from ear to ear. You couldn't help but smile, too, when you saw it. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Everyone has his or her own means of defining value. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Do you know what happens to all the things we did together in the past? When I asked my daughter this, although it was you I wanted to ask, my daughter said, "It's so strange to hear you say something like this, Mom," and asked, "Wouldn't they have seeped into the present, not disappeared?" What difficult words! Do you understand what that means? She says that all the things that have happened are actually in the present, that old things are all mixed in with current things, and current things mingle with future things, and future things are combined with old things; it's just that we can't feel it. But now I can't go on. Do — Kyung-Sook Shin

We each get one life that is our own. We each in our own way struggle to get ahead, love, grieve, and lose our loved ones to death. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Until last fall, you thought you knew your mom well-what your Mom like, what you had to do to appease her when she was angry, what she wanted to hear... But last fall, your belief that you knew her was shattered. You went for a visit without announcing it beforehand, and you discovered that you had become a guest...Maybe you'd become a guest even before then, when you moved to the city. After you left home, your mom never scolded you. Before, Mom would reprimand you harshly if you did something even remotely wrong. — Kyung-Sook Shin

You left this house whenever you wanted to, and came back at your whim, and you never once thought that your wife would be the one to leave. — Kyung-Sook Shin

I wish someone would promise me that nothing is meaningless," he said. "I wish there were promises worth believing in. That after we've been hunted and lonely and anxious and living in fear, there is something else. Considering the way we are living right now, if we were young at the end of our lives instead, then maybe our dreams could come true. — Kyung-Sook Shin

If only we could have met each other sooner. We had led such poor and fragile lives, each alone. — Kyung-Sook Shin

He looked so silly that I could not stop laughing, even as my tears kept flowing. Is the root of laughter also sorrow? As I laughed, I was filled with both joy and sorrow. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Maybe if we hug a hundred strangers, he said, something will change. — Kyung-Sook Shin

But last fall, your belief that you knew her was shattered. You went for a visit without announcing it beforehand, and you discovered that you had become a guest. Mom was continually embarrassed about the messy yard or the dirty blankets. At one point, she grabbed a towel from the floor and hung it, and when food dropped on the table, she picked it up quickly. She took a look at what she had in the fridge, and even though you tried to stop her, she went to the market. If you are with family, you needn't feel embarrassed about leaving the table uncleared after a meal and going to do something else. You realized you'd become a stranger as you watched Mom try to conceal her messy everyday life. — Kyung-Sook Shin

She said that cats were more attached to places than to people. And that was why cats are often found in abandoned houses. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Broken down into hours, the number would be unimaginable. -i'll be right there. — Kyung-Sook Shin

When I lived here and woke up from the fog in my head, I would walk by myself to the grave site set aside for me, so that I could feel comfortable if I lived there after death. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Full of questions and pleas, her eyes seemed to be asking for rescue. — Kyung-Sook Shin

You realize how selfish you were to wish that your wife survived you. It was your selfishness that made you deny that your wife had a serious illness. — Kyung-Sook Shin

I didn't have anything to say to him, but I looked for him all the same. — Kyung-Sook Shin

The first thing she did after she found out she was sick was to send me to live with my older female cousin in the city. I was in middle school at the time. For my mother, sending me away was her way of loving me. She said I was too young to be tied down to a sick mother and that I had too much to live for. Everybody has to say goodbye eventually, she told me, so you may as well start practicing. I cannot say she was right. I think that if we all have to say goodbye eventually then the best we can do is try to stay together as long as we possibly can. But it's not that one of us was right and the other was wrong. We just saw things differently. — Kyung-Sook Shin

What kind of writer are you?" You can't think of a single sentence that would satisfy Hyong-chol. Your — Kyung-Sook Shin

To you, Mom was always Mom. It never occurred to you that she had once taken her first step, or had once been three or twelve or twenty years old. Mom was Mom. She was born as Mom. Until you saw her running to your uncle like that, it hadn't dawned on you that she was a human being who harbored the exact same feeling you had for your own brothers, and this realization led to the awareness that she, too, had had a childhood. From then on, you sometimes thought of Mom as a child, as a girl, as a young woman, as a newlywed, as a mother who had just given birth to you. — Kyung-Sook Shin

How far back does one's memory of someone go? — Kyung-Sook Shin

He said that the plane was too fast, that his body had arrived fast. That he was just ill because his soul could not keep pace with the speed of the plane and was still on its way home, and he would feel better once his soul had caught up. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Leave her be," he said. "She'll stop when she's ready. — Kyung-Sook Shin

So, i revealed secrets i did not want known in order to feel closer to someone. Oh, the loss i felt when i found the secrets i had held dear, that were so difficult to say out loud, that i had kept to myself, were being spread around the next day as if they were nothing! i think that was the moment i realized that pouring your heart out to someone might not bring you closer but in fact make you poorer instead. — Kyung-Sook Shin

You never wondered, Did Mom like being in the kitchen? — Kyung-Sook Shin

The thought of life without her makes me feel like I'm trapped inside a cave. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Taking his hand and letting it go was my way of saying goodbye. — Kyung-Sook Shin

If there were no sea between you and me...there wouldn't be this painful goodbye — Kyung-Sook Shin

Viewing the world from a different angle made it all look strange and dynamic, as if seeing it for the first time. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Now I know that anytime you see a "no trespassing" sign, it means you've got to go in and take a look. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Try thinking of sleep as a kind of rebirth. — Kyung-Sook Shin

The candy melted smoothly and easily on my tongue. I had no idea anything in the world could taste like that. I thought i would turn to stone right there. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Architects have to know everything there is to know about a space. You have to know its past and present. That way you can build its future. — Kyung-Sook Shin

What did one saggy boob say to the other? We better perk up or somebody is going to think we're nuts. — Kyung-Sook Shin

A house is such a strange thing. Everything else gets more worn when people handle it, and sometimes you can feel a person's poison if you get too close to him, but that's not what happens to a house. Even a good house falls apart quickly when nobody stops by. A house is alive only when there are people living in it, brushing against it, staying in it. — Kyung-Sook Shin

I used to think that sharing secrets always brought people closer. So I revealed secrets I did not want known in order to feel closer to someone. Oh, the loss I felt when I found out the secrets that I had held dear, that were so difficult to say out loud, that I had kept to myself, were being spread around the next day as if they were nothing! I think that was the moment I realized that pouring your heart out to someone might not bring you closer but in fact make you poorer instead. I even though maybe growing close to someone was better achieved by empathizing in silence. — Kyung-Sook Shin

You should only ask someone if they love you if you love them, regardless of what the answer might be. — Kyung-Sook Shin

If only i had known that the moment you think everything has ended, something new is beginning. — Kyung-Sook Shin

If I opened my mouth to say a single word, all of the other expired words would have followed and spilled to the ground, as if the string that held them together had snapped. — Kyung-Sook Shin

The trust that had been building inside each of us spread throughout the classroom. Had one of the windows broken at that moment, not even the sound of breaking glass could have disturbed the gentle stillness. — Kyung-Sook Shin

I walked behind my father on the way to her headstone, he looked like a house that was caving in. — Kyung-Sook Shin

My brothers were still catching sparrows when my cousin told me to give him the baby bird. I didn't want to, but I took the squirming bird out of my pocket anyway. I wanted another look at it. It was so small. I don't think it could fly yet. My cousin plucked the bird from my palm and went off with it. I should never have taken it out of my pocket. When he returned, the birds were all burnt to a crisp. Their bones were popping out of their skin. I couldn't even tell which of the birds was mine. I looked at their burnt feathers and blackened skin and burst into tears. I cried for him to give me back my bird, but it was too late. My yelling must have irritate him, because he grabbed the smallest one and shoved it in my face, and said, 'Here it is.' When I took that charred baby bird from him, I felt the world crash down on me. It was the first time I had ever held something that had died. I love you as much as the sorrow I felt. — Kyung-Sook Shin

If you don't want to cook, you should try throwing a dish. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Each time i thought about him, the idea that i would never be able to reach him spread through my mind like a shadow. — Kyung-Sook Shin

When he came home with the traditional gift of underwear bought with his first paycheck, she barely looked at it, and coldly shot at him, "What about what you were going to be? — Kyung-Sook Shin

History is in charge of putting things in order and society is in charge of defining them. The more order we achieve, the more truth is hidden behind that neat surface... Perhaps literature is about throwing into disarray what has been defined... About making a mess of things, all over again. — Kyung-Sook Shin

He laughed and said, I don't believe it either but i want to believe it! — Kyung-Sook Shin

The boy's walk was as distinct as hers. He looked like someone who walked on air, rather than someone who lived with his feet on the ground. — Kyung-Sook Shin

When someone stubbornly insists that they saw something with their own eyes, i take it as a statement mixed with wishful thinking. As what they want to believe. — Kyung-Sook Shin

But, Aunt... I don't want to go to the grave site set aside for me a few years ago at the ancestral grave site. I don't want to go there. When I lived here and woke up from the fog in my head, I would walk by myself to the grave site set aside for me, so that I could feel comfortable if I lived there after death. It was sunny, and I liked the pine tree that stood bent but tall, but remaining a member of this family even in death would be too much and too hard. To try to change my mind, I would sing and pull weeds, sitting there until the sun set, but nothing made me feel comfortable there. I lived with this family for over fifty years; please let me go now. — Kyung-Sook Shin

One thing i am sure of is that our brief conversation in the dark showed him who i really am. I am a dumb fuck. — Kyung-Sook Shin

I'm trying to think about what I can do. But instead all that comes to mind are the things I can't do. How do we judge truth and goodness? Where are justice and righteousness hiding? A society that is violent or corrupt prohibits mutual communication. A society that fears communication is unable to solve any problem. It looks for someone to shift the responsibility to and turns even more violent. — Kyung-Sook Shin

The future rushes in and all we can do is take our memories and move forward with them. Memory keeps only what it wants. Images from memories are sprinkled throughout our lives, but that does not mean we must believe that our own or other people's memories are of things that really happened. When someone stubbornly insists that they saw something with their own eyes, I take it as a statement mixed with wishful thinking. As what they want to believe. Yet as imperfect as memories are, whenever I am faced with one, I cannot help getting lost in thought. Especially when that memory reminds me of what it felt like to be always out of place and always a step behind. Why was it so hard for me to open my eyes every morning, why was I so afraid to form a relationship with anyone, and why was I nevertheless able to break down my walls and find him? — Kyung-Sook Shin

your and your wife's fingers and toes after your deaths. — Kyung-Sook Shin

I guess saying goodbye makes us reach out for those we would ordinarily ignore. Maybe we care about them more, too, when it is time to part. — Kyung-Sook Shin

In this age when words have lost their value, this age that is therefore dominated by violent words, by words swollen and yellowed with starvation, I have lost the will to speak any more of words. My despair over words is not an admittance of defeat in life. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Without even having to think about it, I said, "I hope you all have someone who always makes you want to say, Let's remember this day forever." The students oohed and aahed, and then laughed at each other's reactions. I laughed with them. "Also..." They'd thought I was done but they quieted down again. "I hope you will never hesitate to say, I'll be right there. — Kyung-Sook Shin

as heavy as the load we shoulder is the world that we tread upon. Earthbound beings unfortunately cannot break free of gravity. Life demands sacrifice and difficult decisions from us at every moment. Living does not mean passing through a void of nothingness but rather through a web of relationships among beings, each with their own weight and volume and texture. Insofar as everything is always changing, so our sense of hope shall never die out. — Kyung-Sook Shin