Quotes from Min Jin Lee

Maybe my life can be significant—not on a grand scale like my brother, but to a few people

Ah, the belly has a better memory than the heart!

A good God wouldn't have let my babies die. I can't believe in that. My babies did nothing wrong." "I agree. They did nothing wrong." He looked at her thoughtfully. "But a God that did everything we thought was right and good wouldn't be the creator of the universe. He would be our puppet. He wouldn't be God. There's more to everything than we know.

His Presbyterian minister father had believed in a divine design, and Mozasu believed that life was like this game where the player could adjust the dials yet also expect the uncertainty of factors he couldn't control. He understood why his customers wanted to play something that looked fixed but which also left room for randomness and hope.

there is a tax, you know, on success." "Huh?" "If you do well at anything, you gotta pay up to all the people who did worse. On the other hand, if you do badly, life makes you pay a shit tax, too. Everybody pays something.

If anything, he wanted a very simple life filled with nature, books, and perhaps a few children. He knew that later in life, he also wanted to be let alone to read and to be quiet.

If it were possible for a man and his wife to share one heart, Hoonie was this steady, beating organ.

You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let's see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.

You people work together to make sure nothing ever changes. Sho ga nai. Sho ga nai. That's all I ever hear.

Living every day in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage

Words never mattered' he said, 'seasons mattered. Notice how people behave when they're desperate - that's who they are,' he warned.

At this point in the course, everyone in the room despised Akiko, but suddenly he admired her courage to think so differently and to suggest such a difficult truth. He felt lucky to be at a university and not in most other settings, where the person in charge was always right. Nevertheless, until he really listened to Akiko disagree with the professor, he had not thought for himself fully, and it had never occurred to him to disagree in public.

babies did nothing wrong." "I agree. They did nothing wrong." He looked at her thoughtfully. "But a God that did everything we thought was right and good wouldn't be the creator of the universe. He would be our puppet. He wouldn't be God. There's more to everything than we can know.

But a God that did everything we thought was right and good wouldn't be the creator of the universe. He would be our puppet. He wouldn't be God. There's more to everything than we can know.

Japan would save China by bringing technological advancements to a rural economy; Japan would end poverty in Asia and make it prosper; Japan would protect Asia from the pernicious hands of Western imperialism; and only Germany, Japan's true and fearless ally, was fighting the evils of the West.

The world was cruel with its rations.

that a man must learn to forgive—to know what is important, that

It's a filthy world, Solomon. No one is clean. Living makes you dirty.

The penalties incurred for the mistakes you made had to be paid out in full to the members of your family

Etsuko grew silent, utterly transfixed by the realization that how she saw herself was actually how her children saw her, too. They thought she was a monster.

It was his way to ask many questions when he wanted to know someone's mind. Most people told you their thoughts in words and later confirmed them in actions.

Both men had made money from chance and fear and loneliness.

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration. —Charles Dickens

It was much smaller than her own, but everyone seemed closer, as if each member were organically attached to one seamless body, whereas her enormous extended family felt like cheerfully mismatched Lego bricks in a large bucket.