“Living everyday in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“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.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“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.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“...a God that did everything we thought was right and good wouldn't be the creator of the universe. He would be our puppet.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“There's nothing fucking worse than knowing that you're just like everybody else.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“Sunja-ya, a woman’s life is endless work and suffering. There is suffering and then more suffering. It’s better to expect it, you know. You’re becoming a woman now, so you should be told this. For a woman, the man you marry will determine the quality of your life completely. A good man is a decent life, and a bad man is a cursed life—but no matter what, always expect suffering, and just keep working hard. No one will take care of a poor woman—just ourselves.” Mrs.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“There was more to being something than just blood.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“There was consolation: The people you loved, they were always there with you, she had learned. Sometimes, she could be in front of a train kiosk or the window of a bookstore, and she could feel Noa's small hand when he was a boy, and she would close her eyes and think of his sweet grassy smell and remember that he had always tried his best. At those moments, it was good to be alone to hold on to him.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“You are very brave, Noa. Much, much braver than me. Living every day in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“No one is clean. Living makes you dirty.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“because 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.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“But ideas can make men forget their own interests. And the guys in charge will exploit men who believe in ideas too much.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“People are awful. Drink some beer.” Haruki”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“In Seoul, people like me get called Japanese bastards, and in Japan, I'm just another dirty Korean no matter how much money I make or how nice I am. So what the fuck?”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“Noa had been a sensitive child who had believed that if he followed all the rules and was the best, then somehow, the hostile world would change its mind. His death may have been her fault for having allowed him to believe such cruel ideals”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“All landowners who were foolish enough to stick around were shot. Communists see people only in simple categories.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“His Presbyterian minster 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.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“Patriotism is just an idea, so is capitalism or communism. But ideas can make men forget their own interests. And the guys in charge will exploit men who believe in ideas too much.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“Even if there were hundred bad Japanese, if there was one good one, he refused to make a blanket statement”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“that a man must learn to forgive—to know what is important, that”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“People are rotten everywhere you go. They’re no good. 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.” Sunja”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“Etsuko had failed in this important way—she had not taught her children to hope, to believe in the perhaps-absurd possibility that they might win. Pachinko was a foolish game, but life was not.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“In the end, your belly was your emperor.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“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.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“What surprised him was that as he felt closer to death, he felt the terror of death, its very finality. There were so many things he had failed to do. There were even more things he should never have done.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“The penalties incurred for the mistakes you made had to be paid out in full to the members of your family.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“It was still hard for a Korean to become a Japanese citizen, and there were many who considered such a thing shameful—for a Korean to try to become a citizen of its former oppressor. When she told her friends in New York about this curious historical anomaly and the pervasive ethnic bias, they were incredulous at the thought that the friendly, well-mannered Japanese they knew could ever think she was somehow criminal, lazy, filthy, or aggressive—the negative stereotypical traits of Koreans in Japan.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“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.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“Living every day in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko
“but I should have known from her original announcement of independence to believe in the sincerity of her distaste for involvement, instead hurling on at her as if and because in fact I wanted to be hurt and 'lacerate' myself”
― Jack Kerouac, quote from The Subterraneans
“Poco sabía yo en ese tiempo que don Juan no me estaba dando solamente una descripción intelectual atractiva; me estaba describiendo algo que él llamaba un hecho energético. Para él, los hechos energéticos eran las conclusiones a las que él y los otros chamanes de su linaje llegaron a involucrarse en una función que llamaban ver: el acto de percibir energía directamente como fluye del universo.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
“Because, my dear, God is love. Not just maternal or fraternal love but romantic love as well. Song of Solomon was written to show what the love between a husband and a wife should be, but it was also written to emulate the depth of feeling and love God has for each of us. As intense and wonderful as this young man’s kiss made you feel, more so is the passion and love God has for you. No, your feelings aren’t wrong, but perhaps the timing is.”
― Julie Lessman, quote from A Passion Most Pure
“Every Princess has one Prince to share the loves and joys of life, and do you know how that Princess knows which Prince is hers?”
“How Mommy?”
“From the kiss.”
“But how?”
“The very first kiss with your Prince will change your life. When your lips touch for the first time, the earth will feel like it stops moving, but in the same moment, the world around you spins. It’ll feel like fireworks in the night sky. Like a bright light in the darkness. You’ll feel your heart beat fast in your ears but silence will surround you. And when you pull apart and open your eyes and look at each other, and really see each other. You’ll know it in that moment, through that kiss, that you’ve just let someone own a piece of your heart, and you’ll live happily ever after.”
― Jay McLean, quote from More Than This
“No, truth is something desperate, an' she's got it. Believe me, it's something desperate, an' she's got it.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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