Quotes About Acceptance

The Lord forgives, but the world does not forgive.

But she could not imagine clinging to Japan, which was like a beloved stepmother who refused to love you,

the stories of Koreans in Japan should be told somehow when so much of their lives had been despised, denied, and erased.

And this is something Solomon must understand. We can be deported. We have no motherland. Life is full of things he cannot control so he must adapt. My boy has to survive.

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

Listen, if people don't like you, it's not always your fault. My brother told me that.

Somewhere after being sorry, there had to be another day, and even after a conviction, there could be good in the judgment.

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

Every child should be wanted

I try not to cry, because it doesn't seem to make any difference. And whenever I do, I shut my eyes to make it stop.

Hoonie would have known enough not to want something he could not have—this forbearance was something that any normal peasant would have accepted about his life and what he was allowed to desire.

At work, nearly everyone was Korean, so nothing stupid was said about his background. At school, Mozasu hadn't thought that the taunts has bothered him much, but when the mean remarks had utterly disappeared from his daily life he realized how peaceful he could feel.

With a first name from a Western religion, an obvious Korean surname, and his ghetto address, everyone knew what he was—there was no point in denying it.

Yoseb was not wrong, and she could not take this back.

Somewhere after being sorry, there had to be another day, and even after a conviction, there could be good in the judgement.

At work, nearly everyone was Korean, so nothing stupid was said about his background. At school, Mozasu hadn't thought that the taunts had bothered him much, but when the mean remarks had utterly disappeared from his daily life, he realized how peaceful he could feel.

God controls all things, but we don't understand his reasons. Sometimes, I don't like his actions, either. It's frustrating".

in peacetime everyone actually wants to be mediocre and is terrified of being different.

she would not believe that she was no different than her parents, 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.

Noa didn't care about being Korean when he was with her; in fact, he didn't care about being Korean or Japanese with anyone. He wanted to be, to be just himself, whatever that meant; he wanted to forget himself sometimes.

In America, everything seemed fixable, and in Japan, difficult problems were to be endured. Shoganai, shoganai. How many times had he lheard these words? It cannot be helped. His mother had apparently hated that expression, and suddenly he understood her rage against this cultural resignation that violated her beliefs and wishes. Pachinko, p456

It had been eleven years since he'd died; the pain didn't go away, but its sharp edge had dulled and softened like sea glass.

In their long marriage, the wife gave birth to three sons, but only Hoonie, the eldest and the weakest one, survived. Hoonie was born with a cleft palate and a twisted foot; he was however, endowed with hefty shoulders, a squat build, and a gold complexion.

They do not hire Koreans or Chinese, but that will not matter to you since you are Japanese.' Bingo nodded several times. 'Soo desu,' Noa agreed (Lee 334).