Kang Quotes & Sayings

There are no scores for good intention, it either happened or it didn't. Get to work. — Maria Kang

Trust no one, I scold myself. Even if they smell good. — Lydia Kang

On a studio film, you don't have to worry about running out of film or messing up your costumes; you have five other sets of it. Studio films make you the most comfortable so you can just act. — Sung Kang

Cosmopolitanism starts from the _singular_ individual rather than the _faceless_ collective — Namsoon Kang

[ ... ] The negative turned positive, black misery sublimated into heightened consciousness, suffering into solidarity! — Kang Chol-Hwan

I read The Vegetarian and fell in love with it. A year later, I was invited to go and speak at the London Book Fair (which I'd never even heard of before), as they were gearing up for Korea being the market focus country in 2014. I met Max Porter there, Kang's editor at Portobello, sent him my sample, and the rest is history. — Deborah Smith

Theology should be a discourse that helps the sociopolitical approach to justice to maintain its human face and not to become impersonal. — Namsoon Kang

But at the same time you know that if a time like that spring were to come around again, and even knowing what you know now, you might well end up making a similar choice to the one you'd made then. — Han Kang

Literally, walking down that path. I was walking to work and I passed by A.C.T. (American Conservatory Theater) in San Francisco, and they had night education classes for adults. I said, "Yeah, why not?," and walked in, just for the fun of it, to see what it was like. — Tim Kang

The overall theme of theology can be twofold: the search for meaning and the responsibility one has to the others. — Namsoon Kang

I once believed man was different from other animals, but Yodok showed me that reality doesn't support this opinion. In the camp, there was no difference between man and beast, except maybe that a very hungry human was capable of stealing food from its little ones while an animal, perhaps, was not. — Kang Chol-Hwan

People who are hungry don't have the heart to think about others. Sometimes they can't even care for their own family. Hunger quashes man's will to help his fellow man. I've seen fathers steal food from their own children's lunchboxes. As they scarf down the corn they have only one overpowering desire: to placate, if even for just one moment, that feeling of insufferable need. — Kang Chol-Hwan

I want to swallow you, have you melt into me and flow through my veins. — Han Kang

She was no longer able to cope with all that her sister reminded her of. She'd been unable to forgive her for soaring alone over a boundary she herself could never bring herself to cross, unable to forgive that magnificent irresponsibility that had enabled Yeong-hye to shuck off social constraints and leave her behind, still a prisoner. And before Yeong-hye had broken those bars, she'd never even known they were there. — Han Kang

After you died I could not hold a funeral,
And so my life became a funeral. — Han Kang

Summer nights, washing my neck and back in the yard. The rope of cold water you pumped into the metal pail, scattering into brilliant jewels as you splashed it over my sweat-gummed skin. Remember how you laughed, watching me shudder and oooh. — Han Kang

I believe theology should be about one's way of life, a kind of gaze into onesself and others, and a mode of one's profound existence in the world. — Namsoon Kang

the sight of her lying there utterly without resistance, yet armored by the power of her own renunciation, was so intense as to bring tears to his eyes. — Han Kang

I'm fighting alone, every day. I fight with the hell that I survived. I fight with the fact of my own humanity. I fight with the idea that death is the only way of escaping this fact. — Han Kang

Because of economics, you have to feed the demographics that are buying your product. So, as Asia becomes a much more economic influence on the products that are being made from America, I think people have to be sensitive. — Sung Kang

_For what ends_ does one claim cosmopolitanism? _Whose interest_ does it serve? — Namsoon Kang

Religion is about hospitality, solidarity, and responsibility or it is nothing at all. — Namsoon Kang

I felt that if others can overcome incredible challenges to be in shape, why would my story be any different? — Maria Kang

How can one maintain a theological confidence in what one claims to be _true_ while acknowledging the existence of multiple religions that also claim to be _true_? — Namsoon Kang

I believe recognizing the presence of the face of the other as existent, no matter who/what one is, is one of the core messages of Jesus' teaching. — Namsoon Kang

I've actually started to drive slower. I never want to see a news headline that reads, 'The Chinese Guy from 'Fast & Furious' Pulled Over for a Speeding Ticket.' — Sung Kang

Such uncanny serenity actually frightened him, making him think that perhaps this was a surface impression left behind after any amount of unspeakable viciousness had been digested, or else settled down inside her as a kind of sediment. — Han Kang

I did more research into the police procedure. I worked out with SWAT guys and ex- and active military guys, and consulted with them and read books. As far as the character itself, I don't know how you can research being a focused guy, aside from just being a focused person and knowing what that's like. Outside of the character background and all that, there wasn't a whole lot of other stuff to really delve into. You just do what you do. — Tim Kang

Guys who can't take care of their own women always covet other guys' women — Kang Min-hyuk

At the time, I remained relatively calm before that spectacle of horrors, which is perhaps the most telling indication of just how desensitized I had become. The more I witnessed such atrocities and rubbed shoulders with death, the more I desired to stay alive, no matter the cost. — Kang Chol-Hwan

In a way, composing on the melodic level is an expression of a melodic truth, almost like a geometric truth. If it has clarity, other people will recognize it. There's no way of isolating it in a gallery on a white wall and saying, "This is a work of art. This is a mathematical proof." — Eyvind Kang

Mom ... In my next life I have to be your son again. Then, I will definitely be a kind-hearted son that you love I love you, mom. I love you, mom. There has never been a moment that thoughts of you left my mind. Mom. That you gave birth to me. Thank you. — Kang Min-hyuk

I, faggot Wenqing Kang, Ph. D. in History from UC Santa Cruz, do solemnly swear that homosexual relationships between men are more enjoyable and more harmonious than heterosexual relationships. — Bill Gaede

Sometimes idealism and all that make believe makes the world a better place. — Sung Kang

IF only one's eyes weren't visible to others, she thinks. If only one could hide one's eyes from the world. — Han Kang

The Gods on the death of his wife Yang Kai-hui I lost my proud poplar and you your willow As poplar and willow they soar straight up into the ninth heaven and ask the prisoner of the moon, Wu Kang' what is there. He offers them wine from the cassia tree. The lonely lady on the moon, Chang 0, spreads her vast sleeves and dances for these good souls in the unending sky. Down on earth a sudden report of the tiger's defeat. Tears fly down from a great upturned bowl of rain. — Mao Zedong

Cosmopolitan discourse ... provides one with a _public gaze_ with which one can relate oneself to others in a different way. — Namsoon Kang

My belief system is that you laugh at racism, and that's how it goes away. — Sung Kang

Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way — Han Kang

At my age, what's the use of thinking about my talents? Effort is what's necessary. (Kang 1989: 117) — Kang Sok-Kyong

I was working in financing. I was buying and selling stocks for a market-maker on the options floor at the Pacific Stock Exchange. He took me under his wing and was training me to take over his accounts. That's the career I had embarked on, at the time. — Tim Kang

For me, rather than the language, the Hollywood system of making movies was a tremendous learning experience. — Song Kang-Ho

The politics of trans-identity seeks to move from the _politics of singular identity_ to the _politics of multiple solidarities_ across various identities without abandoning one's personal attachments and commitments to the group that one finds significant. — Namsoon Kang

I felt like a frog that had just come out of its pit, from which it had contemplated the circle of sky outlined by the rim, and taken it for the whole of the world. I had passed through to the other side of the mirror. (162) — Hyok Kang

Glass is transparent, right? And fragile. That's the fundamental nature of glass. And that's why objects that are made of glass have to be handled with care. After all, if they end up smashed or cracked or chipped, then they're good for nothing, right, you just have to chuck them away.
Before, we used to have a kind of glass that couldn't be broken. A truth so hard and clear it might as well have been made of glass. So when you think about it, it was only when we were shattered that we proved we had souls. That what we really were was humans made of glass. — Han Kang

Cosmopolitanism promotes a sense of new we-ness as regarding every individual human being as a citizen of the cosmos. However, the we-cosmic-citizens are not to promote the we-ness-in-sameness, but rather the we-ness-in-alterity.Unlike the solidarity-in-sameness, cosmopolitan solidarity-in-alterity celebrates the singularity and difference of each individual human being while not denying the historical necessity of the strategic construction of we to challenge the very sociopolitically imposed category — Namsoon Kang

Time was a wave, almost cruel in its relentlessness — Han Kang

Cosmopolitan discourse is in a way a response to the issue of solidarity. Although the precondition for solidarity can be a _community_, solidarity requires more intentional commitment and performance than does community. — Namsoon Kang

The question is not, therefore, _whether_ a theory is grand or small, or whether it is universal/global or particular/local, but _what function_ a theory plays and _whose interest_ it serves. — Namsoon Kang

Life is simple: Make choices and don't look back. — Sung Kang

When you sit with people and you can hear what they're hearing, that's quite interesting. — Eyvind Kang

Cosmopolitan theology that longs for the Kindom of God seeks to recover its revolutionary universalizing ethos in terms of hospitality, neighbor-love, and multiple solidarities that one can see in Jesus' teaching and ministry, without any imperialist, kyriarchcal, hierarchical implications — Namsoon Kang

Cosmopolitan discourse emphasizes the _cosmic belonging_ of all individual human beings as the ground of our hospitality, solidarity, justice and neighbor-love. Cosmopolitan discourse is about turning a _compassionate gaze_ onto others regardless of one's nationality and citizenship, origin of birth, religion, gender; race and ethnicity, sexuality, or ability — Namsoon Kang

Life is such a strange thing, she thinks, once she has stopped laughing. Even after certain things have happened to them, no matter how awful the experience, people still go on eating and drinking, going to the toilet and washing themselves - living, in other words. And sometimes they even laugh out loud. And they probably have these same thoughts, too, and when they do it must make them cheerlessly recall all the sadness they'd briefly managed to forget. — Han Kang

A lot of times, you do independent films for passion because you may even lose money doing one, but it doesn't matter. — Sung Kang

I never let myself forget that every single person I meet is a member of this human race. And that includes you, professor, listening to this testimony. As it includes myself. — Han Kang

Pre-'Tokyo Drift,' I was like: 'Am I gonna play Yakuza #1 and Chinese Waiter #2 for the rest of my life? Is America even ready for an Asian face that speaks English, that doesn't do Kung Fu?' — Sung Kang

Our individual consciousness is actually part of a larger system. There are many levels of consciousness, and the creativity used in composing the music comes from another level that is not purely personal. — Eyvind Kang

Learning how to listen to others and how to listen to your own thoughts is the ultimate process. — Eyvind Kang

Why is such a bad thing to die? — Han Kang

Cosmopolitan theology is a theology for _the impossible_. — Namsoon Kang

As actors, we try to just do the character justice and try to make the writer's intentions come to life. If you do that to the best of your ability, that's really all you can do. All that other stuff, like a warm reception from fans and viewers, is just icing. — Tim Kang

What's the meaning of life?"
"I have been programmed by Hexus to reply 'meatballs,'" it says. — Lydia Kang

For the first time, she became vividly aware of how much of her life she had spent with her husband. It had been a period of time utterly devoid of happiness and spontaneity. A time that she'd so far managed to get through only by using up every last reserve of perseverance and consideration. All of it self-inflicted. — Han Kang

For once, I'll be proud to be in the shadows. — Lydia Kang

Water is the most purifying element. It's always involved in baptisms, healings, that kind of work. — Eyvind Kang

When I started acting, I hoped I could make some kind of positive contribution to this world. When I get a letter from some kid in Nebraska saying that, prior to Han, nobody wanted to be his friend because Asians weren't cool if they weren't into martial arts - Now he's accepted and recognized as a human being. That's pretty awesome, right? — Sung Kang

When a person undergoes such a drastic transformation, there's simply nothing anyone else can do but sit back and let them get on with it. — Han Kang

Prior to 'Tokyo Drift,' the iconic perception of Asians in Hollywood films has been either the Kung Fu guy, the Yakuza guy or some technical genius. It used to be such a joke, to be laughed at rather than with. — Sung Kang

Or perhaps it was simply that things were happening inside her, terrible things, which no one else could even guess at, and thus it was impossible for her to engage with everyday life at the same time. — Han Kang

There is no guiding principle, because the work that is created in collaborations should be created from its own principles. — Eyvind Kang

When you're listening to music, you listen to it with a friend one day and it sounds one way. You listen to it with another friend the next day, and it sounds a little different. Sometimes the greatest pleasure of listening is not the music that you're listening to; it's the person that you're listening to it with. — Eyvind Kang

In a way, all recorded music is reduced to the same level, no matter what it is. You find it in the store, you put it on and, "Oh, that's not cool. That's gangsta rap. That's white supremacist punk." But in a way, the content is removed from the intention of the people that made it. That's the commercial level of music. — Eyvind Kang

Theological discourse can be, in and of itself, a form of identity and solidarity. — Namsoon Kang

Bwenawa brought my attention to two wooden planks raised about four feet above the ground. On the ledges were lagoon fish sliced open and lying in the sun, the carcasses just visible through an enveloping blizzard of flies. "You see, " said Bwenawa. "The water dries in the sun, leaving the salt. It's kang-kang [tasty]. We call it salt fish."
"Ah," I said. "In my country we call it rotten fish. — J. Maarten Troost

We women were facing up to life with our own our bodies as our only asset. We may not have smelled like roses, but we got to learn all about life and freedom in our own way. (Kang 1989: 11) — Kang Sok-Kyong

Her life was no more than a ghostly pageant of exhausted endurance, no more real than a television drama. Death, who now stood by her side, was as familiar to her as a family member, missing for a long time but now returned. — Han Kang

What does it mean to be human, to continue to live as human, to remain _faithful_ to the Divine while living in a cultural, sociogeopoltical, and religious world where power disparity between/among humans based on religious world where power disparity between/among humans based on their nationality, citizenship, gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, religion and so forth still prevails? The act of _theologizing_ for me involves responding to these questions and stimulating the practice of liberating and enlarging human possibility in our daily reality. — Namsoon Kang

Purity does not exist in any thinker, simply because one is always historically and socioculturally situated, bound, and limited, and, therefore, no one is epistemologically innocent. — Namsoon Kang

Possibly the best thing about the whole experience is that Kang and I are now really good friends. It's as much of a pleasure and privilege to know her as a person as it is to translate her work. She's been over for two UK publicity tours, which means lots of time to chat on trains etc., and she was hear all last summer for a writer's residency in Norwich, where I got to meet her son too. — Deborah Smith

I don't like to treat words and sounds like objects. You have to penetrate deeply into their meaning. — Eyvind Kang

Musicians always want to sacrifice our creativity to get involved in environmental issues or political activism of some sort - to reduce it to something more populist in terms of sing-alongs or guitar songs with a message. — Eyvind Kang

Vaillant's study and numerous others on happiness, success, failure, and motivation all confirm the same thing: health comes first, happiness is love and connection, and success requires adaptability. To be "happy-well," we must tame the imbalanced tiger in us and instead embrace our inner, balanced dolphin. — Shimi Kang

Cosmopolitanism seeks a _we_ that does not rely on the exclusion of _others_ but, instead, recognizes and confirms each other as part of the planetary _we_. The cosmopolitan _we_ is not grounded in a monolithic sameness but in a constant alterity and _ethical singularity_ of each individual human person regardless of one's national origin and belonging, religious affiliation, gender, race and ethnicity, class ability, or sexuality. — Namsoon Kang

The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure. She had believed in her own inherent goodness, her humanity, and lived accordingly, never causing anyone harm. Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging, all her successes had depended on it, and she would have gone on like that indefinitely. She didn't understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived. — Han Kang

Soundlessly, and without fuss, some tender thing deep inside me broke. Something that, until then, I hadn't even realized was there. — Han Kang

Even if you're a genius and you invent your own language, it doesn't become a language until there are people using it. — Eyvind Kang

Theological discourses function in various ways as sites of contestation and resistance, of forming new religious and personal identities, and of building solidarities. Theological discourses that theologians produce, disseminate, and teach in academia are not simply objective interpretations and neutral reflections on the world and the church in it. Instead theological discourses are productions of and for the world and the church that we live in — Namsoon Kang

Free love is vibrator slogan. — Jay Caspian Kang

It's always on everyone's list, like, 'What's New Orleans like?' I think people have a pre-conceived idea, like it's just Mardi Gras and Bourbon Street. But really, there's so much culture, the music's great, the food's great. It's not good for the waistline! But I'm actually from the South, I'm from Georgia, so the weather doesn't bother me. — Sung Kang

Perhaps the only things he truly loved were his images - those he'd filmed, or then again, perhaps only those he had yet to film. — Han Kang

I want to try new creative things and find refreshing stories. That's how I've come to choose the roles that I've done. — Song Kang-Ho

The worst have scraped out the mantle of the best and wear it around as something real. It takes no genius to see that. But I moved to San Francisco because the masquerade of kindly gestures is, at least, kind. And it remains kind. And all the people who would sit back and comment on the garishness of the costumes, the hollowness of the dialogue, the lack of divine conviction, well, all those people are either dead or fifteen years old. — Jay Caspian Kang

Who approaches collaboration with agenda in terms of content? The agenda is only in terms of process, which is generosity, listening, careful thinking. — Eyvind Kang

I got some pilot scripts and auditioned for a couple other ones, too. It was just a standard audition, where I kept going in to read and went up the ladder, in terms of people who you're performing for during those auditions. Each step of the way, I was happy with that level of audition. — Tim Kang

This was the body of a beautiful young woman, conventionally an object of desire, and yet it was a body from which all desire had been eliminated. But this was nothing so crass as carnal desire, not for her - rather, or so it seemed, what she had renounced was the very life that her body represented. — Han Kang

Whenever I visit Korea she [Kang] buys me lunch and takes me to a gallery. As if all this wasn't enough, she has incredible respect for translation as a creative, artistic practice - she insists that each English version is 'our book', offered to share her fees with me when she found out I wasn't getting paid for translating her publicity stuff, always asks the editor to credit me, and does so herself whenever she's interviewed. Too good to be true. — Deborah Smith

I love the pleasure of finding the same truth in two different places. It has a lot to do with a soul. — Eyvind Kang

Now the question we must ask is ... what kind of _practices_ [theology] motivates, what kind of _gaze_ onto others, the guest, the new arrivant, it offers us to carry with us; _not_ who my neighbors are _but_ to whom I am being a neighbor. — Namsoon Kang

I think when we shot 'Tokyo Drift' I was a little too young to really understand what made Han who he is, and then I got older, and you start to make a little bit of money, and you realize that money will never buy you happiness. — Sung Kang