Young Ha Quotes & Sayings

Well, ha-jolly-ha to YOU, young Stiffie
with knobs on! — P.G. Wodehouse

Just like any other company, Samsung can fail, and if that happens, how will the South Korean economy overcome the shock? If we don't decrease our over-reliance on the chaebols and prepare to let smaller, dynamic start-ups fill the gaps in their place, it won't. — Kim Young-ha

In my 20s, I became obsessed with the role-playing game 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms,' named after a classical Chinese novel, and later 'The Sims,' a life-simulation game, and 'StarCraft,' a science-fiction game. — Kim Young-ha

People unconsciously want to reveal their inner urges. — Young-Ha Kim

We are all born artists. If you have kids, you know what I mean. Almost everything kids do is art. They draw with crayons on the wall. — Kim Young-ha

I believe, if you played your cards right, you could still marry her, Pongo.' 'Aren't you overlooking the trifling fact that I happen to be engaged to Hermione?' 'Slide out of it.' 'Ha!' 'It is what your best friends would advise. You are a moody, introspective young man, all too prone to look on the dark side of things. I shall never forget you that day at the dog races. Sombre is the only word to describe your attitude as the cop's fingers closed on your coat collar. You — P.G. Wodehouse

Novels are food for the leftover hours of life, the in-between times, the moments of waiting. — Young-Ha Kim

Oh, don't sit there blushin, he says, git on with it. Life's too short. Take her off in the bushes, my friend, an make her yer own. If you don't, somebody else will. Hell, I might jest make a play fer her myself. That 'ud put a rocket in yer pocket. Ha ha! How's about it, Red? You an me? — Moira Young

People say mountains change in about ten years. If something as stubborn and mammoth as a mountain can change in a decade, the hearts of ordinary North Koreans can change. I'm sure of it. I'm living proof." --Ha Young, a North Korean defector — Jieun Baek

When the head of the Hyundai Motor Company, Chung Mong-koo, was fighting with his younger brother Chung Mong-hun over the company's management, he is said to have consulted a fortune-teller. — Kim Young-ha

The moment kids start to lie is the moment storytelling begins. They are talking about things they didn't see. It's amazing. It's a wonderful moment. Parents should celebrate. 'Hurray! My boy finally started to lie!' All right! It calls for celebration. — Kim Young-ha

I like to take certain aspects of genre fiction and modify them in my own way. 'Your Republic Is Calling You' follows the form of a spy novel, but it leads readers into a world of Kafkaesque irrationality. — Kim Young-ha

Sometimes fiction is more easily understood than true events. Reality is often pathetic. — Young-Ha Kim

The artistic desire reveals itself in dark form - in karaoke bars [or] trolling on the Internet. — Young-Ha Kim

Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate
With thy most operant poison! What is here?
Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens!
Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,
Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.
Ha, you gods! why this? what this, you gods? Why, this
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,
Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed,
Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves
And give them title, knee and approbation
With senators on the bench: this is it
That makes the wappen'd widow wed again; — William Shakespeare

The present is re-created to immortalize memories. It's pathetic, but that's human tendency now. — Young-Ha Kim

From the early 1960s to the mid-1980s - the era of military dictatorship when South Korea was rebuilding itself from a postwar economic basket case to a humming, modern nation - military schools were the track of choice for ambitious young men. — Kim Young-ha

South Korea first allowed women into the military in 1950 during the Korean War. Back then, female soldiers mainly held administrative and support positions. Women began to take on combat roles in the 1990s when the three military academies, exclusive to men, began accepting women. — Kim Young-ha

We don't know why we should be artists, but we have many reasons why we can't be. — Kim Young-ha

his finger around the trigger. Mark closed his eyes and felt nothing. "How old are you, Mark?" "Eleven." "You told me that. Eleven. And I'm forty-four. We're both too young to die, aren't we, Mark?" "Yes sir." "But it's happening, pal. Do you feel it?" "Yes sir." "My client killed a man and hid the body, and now my client wants to kill me. That's the whole story. They've made me crazy. Ha! Ha! This is great, Mark. This is wonderful. I, the trusted — John Grisham

A novel, basically, is writing one sentence - then, without violating the scope of the first one, writing the next sentence. — Young-Ha Kim

NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system:

Two farthings = One Ha'penny. Two ha'pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). Once Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.

The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated. — Neil Gaiman

The most difficult thing about living as a writer is precisely 'having to write.' Pretending to be a writer is easy. Living freely, reading many books, going on frequent trips, cultivating minor eccentricities ... but genuinely being a writer is difficult, because you have to write something that will convince both yourself and readers. — Kim Young-ha

When the moon covers the sun, we have a solar eclipse. What do you call it when birds do that? — Kim Young-ha

And still everything's the same, even though I did my best to get as far away as I could. — Young-Ha Kim

Pity! Ha, ha! I have never known
pity, since you deserted me. I was incapable of feeling it. If
a poor starved child came into my kitchen, shivering, and crying,
and begging for a morsel of food, I let the servants look to it.
I never felt any desire to take the child to myself, to warm it
at my own hearth, to have the pleasure of seeing it eat and be
satisfied. And yet I was not like that when I was young; that I
remember clearly! It is you that have created an empty, barren
desert within me
and without me too! — Henrik Ibsen

JG: Ha! I will get him Looking for Alaska and tell him this idea that a human being is more than a human being is a mistaken idea and in the end does no service either to him or the person he's imagining. That trope has become so deeply embedded in American culture, and as someone who writes about young people falling in love, I feel like I can't ignore it, but I try to make it clear that life works best when we think of people as people. — John Green

Life is a continuous cycle of once-terrifying things becoming normal. — Young-Ha Kim

Here's a question we all ask ourselves at least once when we're young: Where does that starlight come from? It's been there before I was born, and before my grandmother, and her grandmother were born. So just how far is that star from Earth? — Kim Young-ha

When I wrote 'Your Republic Is Calling You,' it was Franz Kafka's writing that I had most in mind, and James Joyce's 'Ulysses.' Entirely out of the blue, Kafka's characters receive an order to go somewhere, and when they try to comply, they never quite manage it. Ki-yong in 'Your Republic Is Calling You' is precisely that sort of character. — Kim Young-ha

Why does nothing change, even when you set out for a faraway place? — Young-Ha Kim

To-day I bake, to-morrow brew, The next I'll have the young Queen's child. Ha! glad am I that no one knew That Rumpelstiltskin I am styled. — Jacob Grimm

In the early 2000s, people expected that anonymity on the Internet would be positive for the development of democracy in South Korea. In a Confucian culture like South Korea's, hierarchy can block the free exchange of opinions in face-to-face situations. The web offered a way around that. — Kim Young-ha

Handwritten political posters - often composed in an artless and unadorned style, usually just words on plain white paper - were ubiquitous in South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s and were one of the few outlets available for expressing political views. Most posters were anonymous and put up under the cover of night. — Kim Young-ha

An artist's passion shouldn't create passion. An artist's supreme virtue is to be detached and cold. — Young-Ha Kim

I always take a close look at those who lose themselves in self portraits. They are solitary souls, prone to introspection, who have really grappled with their existence. — Young-Ha Kim

The constant movement of a military life can be tough on children. My father was an officer in the army, and I was forced to change elementary schools six times. — Kim Young-ha

It's an open secret: Even now, in the 21st century, Korean executives often consult spiritual advisers before making major business decisions - decisions that can affect their employees around the world. — Kim Young-ha

Art is about going a little nuts and justifying the next sentence. — Young-Ha Kim

In 2013, Samsung accounted for about 20 percent of South Korea's total business profits. Samsung Electronics, just one of scores of subsidiaries, accounts for close to 15 percent of the total shares in the South Korean stock market. But you don't need to know these figures to get a feel for Samsung's hold on the country. — Kim Young-ha

Of John Le Carre's books, I've only read 'The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,' and I haven't read anything by Graham Greene, but I've heard a great deal about how 'Your Republic Is Calling You' reminded English readers of those two writers. I don't really have any particular interest in Cold War spy novels. — Kim Young-ha

A revolution cannot progress without the fuel of terror. With time that relationship inverts: the revolution presses forward for the sake of terror. Like an artist, the man creating terror should be detached, cold-blooded. He must keep in mind that the energy of the terror he releases can consume him. — Young-Ha Kim

A kid who has just started to lie is taking the first step as a storyteller. — Young-Ha Kim

There are only two ways to be a god: through creation or murder. — Young-Ha Kim

For all the popularity of spiritual advisers in South Korea, it still shocks to see the leaders of huge public companies relying on fortune-tellers. A shaman may advise a struggling executive to move a building's front entrance, tapping the widespread pungsu belief that your luck depends on the direction of your house. — Kim Young-ha

People who don't know how to summarize have no dignity. Neither do people who needlessly drag on their messy lives. They who don't know the beauty of simplification, of pruning away the unnecessary, die without ever comprehending the true meaning of life. — Young-Ha Kim

Where I teach students in drama school, there's a course called Dramatics. In this course, all students must put on a play. However, acting majors are not supposed to act. They can write the play, for example, and the writers may work on stage art. Likewise, stage art majors may become actors, and in this way you put on a show. — Kim Young-ha

A military career offers the stability many South Korean women crave. — Kim Young-ha

Don't be a fish; be a frog. Swim in the water and jump when you hit ground. — Kim Young-ha