“You realize that you habitually thought of Mom when something in your life was not going well, because when you thought of her it was as though something got back on track, and you felt re-energized.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“...I have so many dreams of my own, and I remember things from my childhood, from when I was a girl and a young woman, and I haven't forgotten a thing. So why did we think of Mom as a mom from the very beginning? She didn't have the opportunity to pursue her dreams, and all by herself, faced everything the era dealt her, poverty and sadness, and she couldn't do anything about her very bad lot in life other than suffer through it and get beyond it and live her life to the very best of her ability, giving her body and her heart to it completely. Why did I never give a thought to Mom's dreams?”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“Either a mother and daughter know each other very well or they are strangers.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“If you only do what you like, who's going to do what you don't like?”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“إن معظم الاشياء في العالم لا تأتي غير متوقعة إن فكر المرء فيها بعناية. فحتى الأشياء التي قد يظنها غير اعتيادية، هي في الواقع أشياء كان المقرر لها أن تحدث. وإن صادف المرء أحداثا غير اعتيادية،فهذا يعني غالبا انه لا يفكر في الأمور مليا.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“Only after Mom went missing did you realize that her stories were piled inside you, in endless stacks. Mom's everyday life used to go on in a repeating loop, without a break. Her everyday words, which you didn't think deeply about and sometimes dismissed as useless when she was with you, awoke in your heart, creating tidal waves.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“People say that when a baby is crying the paternal grandmother will say, "The baby is crying, you should feed her," and the maternal grandmother will say, "Why is that baby crying so much, making her mom so tired?”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“Life is sometimes amazingly fragile, but some lives are frighteningly strong.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“Mom's eyes held yours for a moment. 'I don't like or dislike the kitchen. I cooked because I had to. I had to stay in the kitchen so you could all eat and go to school. How could you only do what you like? There are things you have to do whether you like it or not.' Mom's expression asked, What kind of question is that? And then she murmured, 'If you only do what you like, who's going to do what you don't like?”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“إن صمت الموتى يجعل الباقين على قيد الحياة يصابون بالجنون.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“Even though nobody knew that you were in my life, you were the person who brought a raft at every rapid current and helped me cross that water safely. I was happy that you were there. I came to tell you I was able to travel through my life because I could come to you when I was anxious, not when I was happy.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“All I wanted was for you to be free from everything. And with that freedom, you often showed me another world, so I wanted you to be even freer. I wanted you to be so free that you would live your life for other people.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“You're paved in my heart like an old road. Like the pebbles in a pebble field, dirt in dirt, dust in dust, cobwebs in cobwebs.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“How can you live without trusting people? There are more people who are good than people who are bad!”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“إن تلك الأم هي الشخص الذي تلجأين إليه هندما يتملكك اليأس حيال شيء ما في هذه المدينه.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“بعد أن اختفت، أصبحت حاضرة في حياتكم، و كأنكم تستطيعون مد أيديكم إليها و لمسها”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“You left this house whenever you wanted to, and came back at your whim, and you never once thought that your wife would be the one to leave.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“If there were no sea between you and me...there wouldn't be this painful goodbye”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“كيف يسع المرء أن يفعل ما يحلو له فقط؟ هناك أشياء يجب على المرء فعلها سواء أأحبّ ذلك أم لا”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“إن معظم الأشياء في العالم لا تأتي غير متوقعة إن فكر المرء فيها بعناية. فحتى الأشياء التي قد يظنها غير اعتيادية، هي في الواقع أشياء كان من المقرر لها أن تحدث. وإن صادف المرء أحداثاً غير اعتيادية، فهذا يعني غالباً أنه لايفكر في الأمور ملياً.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“You never wondered, Did Mom like being in the kitchen?”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“Until last fall, you thought you knew your mom well-what your Mom like, what you had to do to appease her when she was angry, what she wanted to hear... But last fall, your belief that you knew her was shattered. You went for a visit without announcing it beforehand, and you discovered that you had become a guest...Maybe you'd become a guest even before then, when you moved to the city. After you left home, your mom never scolded you. Before, Mom would reprimand you harshly if you did something even remotely wrong.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“there’s no beginning or end to kitchen work. You eat breakfast, then it’s lunch, and then it’s dinner, and when it’s bright again it’s breakfast again.…”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“إن كلمة "ماما" مريحة وتنطوي على توسل خفي: من فضلك اعتني بي. من فضلك توقفي عن الصراخ في وجهي وربتي على رأسي بحنان. من فضلك قفي إلي جانبي سواء أكنت على خطأ أم على صواب.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“Most things in the world are not unexpected if one thinks carefully about them. Even something one would call unusual—if one thinks about it, it’s really just a thing that was supposed to happen. Encountering unusual events often means you didn’t think things through.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“فلم يخطر ببالي في تلك الأيام قط أن أفكر في حبي للعمل في المطبخ أو عدمه. فإن أعددت قدراً كبيراً من الأرز و واحدةً أصغر من الحساء، فلم أفكر في مقدار التعب الذي يهدّ جسمي، بل شعرا بالسعادة لأن هذا الطعام سيدخل أفواه أطفالي، إنك على الأرجح لا تتخيلين الآن مايعنيه هذا ، ولكننا في ذلك الوقت من الماضي كنت دائمي القلق من أن ينفد الطعام منا. فقد شكل تأمين الطعام والبقاء على قيد الحياة أهم غاية لنا. أخبرتك أمك وهي تبتسم أنها تعتبر تلك الأيام أسعد أيام حياتها.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“وبعد أن أختفت فقط، أصبح وجودها ملموساً في حياتك وكأنك تستطيع أن تمدّ يدك إليها وتلمسها.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“That your wife truly loved the world, and that you loved her.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
“When I was tired, I went over to you and opened your fingers. Touched your toes. When I did that, I felt energized. When I first put shoes on you, I was really excited. When you toddled over to me, I laughed so much; even if someone had spilled out a heap of gold and silver and jewels in front of me, I wouldn’t have laughed like that.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, quote from Please Look After Mom
Kyung-Sook Shin
Born place: in Jeongeup, North Jeolla Province, Korea, Republic of
Born date January 12, 1963
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“On the average, a person who cares for other people, for his country, or for mankind, is a happier man than one who does not; but of what use is it to preach this doctrine to a man who cares for nothing but his own ease, or his own pocket? He cannot care for other people if he would. It is like preaching to the worm who crawls on the ground, how much better it would be for him if he were an eagle.”
― John Stuart Mill, quote from On Liberty and Other Essays
“Mona was half ninja, half gunslinger, popping off charge after charge into the blue creatures.”
― Eoin Colfer, quote from The Supernaturalist
“The God of the gaps argument for God fails when a plausible scientific account for a gap in current knowledge can be given. I do not dispute that the exact nature of the origin of the universe remains a gap in scientific knowledge. But I deny that we are bereft of any conceivable way to account for that origin scientifically.”
― Victor J. Stenger, quote from God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
“I like that kind of thing. I like warmth and uncalled-for kindness, the small unnoticed generosities that speckle the meanness of the world.”
― Roland Merullo, quote from A Little Love Story
“I’m not going to be like my mother. You’re maniacs. You’re mad."
“Yes,” said Kate. “I know it. And so you won’t be. The best of luck to you. And what are you going to be instead?”
― Doris Lessing, quote from The Summer Before the Dark
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Extraordinary Means
The Raven King
Catechism of the Cat...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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