Quotes from Min Jin Lee

You knew because you wanted to live. I want to live, too, and if I want to live, I have to know things others don't. Now, I'm telling you something valuable. I'm telling you something so you can save your sons' lives.

If Risa wrote even an ordinary description on an invoice, Noa would pause to read it again, not because of what it said, but because he could detect that there was a kind of dancing spirit in the hand that wrote such elegant letters.

You knew because you wanted to live. I want to live, too, and if I want to live, I have to know things others don't.

that seeing him as only Korean—good or bad—was the same as seeing him only as a bad Korean. She could not see his humanity, and Noa realized that this was what he wanted most of all: to be seen as human.

But you just said, we quarrel. I suppose it's like when two grannies have a dispute, and the villagers constantly whisper in their ears about the wickedness of the other one. If the grannies want to have any peace, they have to forget everyone else and remember that they used to be friends.

Without Hansu and Isak and Noa, there wouldn't have been this pilgrimage to this land. Beyond the dailiness, there had been moments of shimmering beauty and some glory, too, even in this ajumma's life. Even if no one knew, it was true.

Hers was a beauty that alienated-she was not cold exactly, but she did not offer warmth or ease-she possessed a kind of eerie solitude.

It wasn't uncommon to hear rationalizations of this sort—the longing to transform bad deeds into good ones. No one ever wanted to hear that God didn't work that way; the Lord would never want a young woman to trade her body to follow a commandment

that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement. However, Yoseb did not have enough energy to rise from his pallet, let alone search for his dear nephew, a boy who was like his own flesh.

that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement

But in the presence of Casey's mother, Ella felt her mother's loss far more profoundly than she'd thought possible.

send some money home each month. "Just study," Hansu had said. "Learn everything. Fill your mind with knowledge—it's the only kind of power no one can take away from you." Hansu never told him to study, but rather to learn, and it occurred to Noa that there was a marked difference. Learning was like playing, not labor.

Like a man starved, Noa filled his mind, ravenous for good books.

It did not occur to her to argue with these kinds of well-wishes that she would've given up nearly everything if her mother could have been alive. No one wanted to see how she might be missing something, too-that if Ella were to run away, she had no mother who'd search for her.

Save your family. Feed your belly. Pay attention, and be skeptical of the people in charge.

When she was a girl, she'd believed that she could work harder than anyone under any circumstances, but she no longer felt that way. Lately, Yangjin felt tired and impatient; small things bothered her. Aging was supposed to make you more patient, but in her case, she felt angrier.

he admired their well-composed thoughts

mas um Deus que fizesse tudo que julgamos correto e bom não seria o criador do universo. Seria nossa marionete. Não seria Deus.

I thought that no matter how many hills and brooks you crossed, the whole world was Korea and everyone in it was Korean. —Park Wan-suh

Viver todos os dias na presença daqueles que se recusam a reconhecer sua humanidade exige muita coragem.

Aunque había fracasado, ser madre era eterno; era una parte de su vida que no terminaría con su muerte.

Su hermana mayor solía decir que los hombres odiaban la compasión; en lugar de eso querían empatía y admiración, una combinación que no era fácil.

And one bad Christian hurts tens of thousands of Christians everywhere, especially in a nation of unbelievers.

dead?" "Yes. She sold