Pachinko

by Min Jin Lee

In the end, your belly was your emperor.

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

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.

customers wanted to play something that looked fixed but which also left room for randomness and hope.

there could only be a few winners and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones.

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.

Did mothers fail by not telling their sons that suffering would come?

“But all those able-bodied middle-class people who are scared of their shadows, well, they pay the mediocre tax in regular quarterly installments with compounding interest. When you play it safe, that’s what happens, my friend.

In America, everything seemed fixable, and in Japan, difficult problems were to be endured.

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