Oscar > Oscar's Quotes

“Sometimes, when he wanted to hide or not outright lie, he chose to speak in English. He used to break into it when he argued with my mother, and it drove her crazy when he did and she would just plead, "No, no!" as though he had suddenly introduced a switchblade into a clean fistfight.”
― Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker

“She believed that displays of emotion signaled a certain failure between people. The only person who could upset her, make her cry or laugh in the open, was my father. He could always unsettle her face with a stern admonition or an old joke or pun in Korean. Otherwise, I thought she possessed the most exquisite control over the muscles of her face. She seemed to have the subtle power of inflection over them, the way a tongue can move air.”
― Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker

“Her father was one of those tall, angular, self-embalming types. All balls and liver. His kind predated the notion of alcoholism. Groton, Princeton, Harvard Business School. His neatly clipped silver hair and tailored suits and unmitigating stare of eyes and trim old body said it all over in a simple, clear language: Chief Executive Officer. Do not fuck with this man.”
― Chang-rae Lee

“Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow