Evelyn Angel > Evelyn's Quotes

“This society hasn't changed one bit. People who don't fit into the village are expelled: men who don't hunt, women who don't give birth to children. For all we talk about modern society and individualism, anyone who doesn't try to fit in can expect to be meddled with, coerced, and ultimately banished from the village.”
― Sayaka Murata, コンビニ人間 [Konbini ningen]

“When something was strange, everyone thought they had the right to come stomping in all over your life to figure out why.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“People who are considered normal enjoy putting those who aren't on trial, you know.”
― Sayaka Murata, コンビニ人間 [Konbini ningen]

“Anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“My present self is formed almost completely of the people around me.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“Deep down I wanted some kind of change. Any change, whether good or bad, would be better than the state of impasse I was in now.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“You eliminate the parts of your life that others find strange--maybe that's what everyone means when they say they want to 'cure" me.”
― Sayaka Murata, コンビニ人間 [Konbini ningen]

“Maybe people who thought they were being violated felt a bit better when they attacked other people in the same way.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“As long as you wear the skin of what’s considered an ordinary person and follow the manual, you won’t be driven out of the village or treated as a burden.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“As far as I was concerned, though, keeping my mouth shut was the most sensible approach to getting by in life.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure. She had believed in her own inherent goodness, her humanity, and lived accordingly, never causing anyone harm. Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging, all her successes had depended on it, and she would have gone on like that indefinitely. She didn't understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived.”
― Han Kang, The Vegetarian

“Is it true that human beings are fundamentally cruel? Is the experience of cruelty the only thing we share as a species? Is the dignity that we cling to nothing but self-delusion, masking from ourselves the single truth: that each one of us is capable of being reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat? To be degraded, slaughtered - is this the essential of humankind, one which history has confirmed as inevitable?”
― Han Kang, Human Acts

“Life is such a strange thing, she thinks, once she has stopped laughing. Even after certain things have happened to them, no matter how awful the experience, people still go on eating and drinking, going to the toilet and washing themselves - living, in other words. And sometimes they even laugh out loud. And they probably have these same thoughts, too, and when they do it must make them cheerlessly recall all the sadness they'd briefly managed to forget.”
― Han Kang, The Vegetarian

“Some memories never heal. Rather than fading with the passage of time, those memories become the only things that are left behind when all else is abraded. The world darkens, like electric bulbs going out one by one. I am aware that I am not a safe person.”
― Han Kang, Human Acts

“I'm fighting alone, every day. I fight with the hell that I survived. I fight with the fact of my own humanity. I fight with the idea that death is the only way of escaping this fact.”
― Han Kang, Human Acts

“Glass is transparent, right? And fragile. That's the fundamental nature of glass. And that's why objects that are made of glass have to be handled with care. After all, if they end up smashed or cracked or chipped, then they're good for nothing, right, you just have to chuck them away.
Before, we used to have a kind of glass that couldn't be broken. A truth so hard and clear it might as well have been made of glass. So when you think about it, it was only when we were shattered that we proved we had souls. That what we really were was humans made of glass.”
― Han Kang, Human Acts

“There's nothing wrong with keeping quiet, after all, hadn't women traditionally been expected to be demure and restrained?”
― Han Kang, The Vegetarian

“It's your body, you can treat it however you please. The only area where you're free to do just as you like.”
― Han Kang, The Vegetarian

“The world had changed a great deal, but the little rules, contracts and customs had not, which meant the world hadn't actually changed at all.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, 82년생 김지영

“What do you want from us? The dumb girls are too dumb, the smart girls are too smart, and the average girls are too unexceptional?”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“While offenders were in fear of losing a small part of their privilege, the victims were running the risk of losing everything.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“You’re right. In a world where doctors can cure cancer and do heart transplants, there isn’t a single pill to treat menstrual cramps.’ Her sister pointed at her own stomach. ‘The world wants our uterus to be drug-free. Like sacred grounds in a virgin forest.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“The fact that they have families and parents,” Eunsil retorted, “is why they shouldn’t do these things, not why we should forgive them.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“Jiyoung grew up being told to be cautious, to dress conservatively, to be “ladylike.” That it’s your job to avoid dangerous places, times of day and people. It’s your fault for not noticing and not avoiding.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“People who pop a painkiller at the smallest hint of a migraine, or who need anaesthetic cream to remove a mole, demand that women giving birth should gladly endure the pain, exhaustion, and mortal fear. As if that’s maternal love. This idea of “maternal love” is spreading like religious dogma. Accept Maternal Love as your Lord and Savior, for the Kingdom is near!”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“How can you say something so backward in this day and age? Jiyoung, don’t stay out of trouble. Run wild! Run wild, you hear me?”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“Some demeaned it as “bumming around at home,” while others glorified it as “work that sustains life,” but none tried to calculate its monetary value. Probably because the moment you put a price on something, someone has to pay.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“I've noticed this about new employees over the years. The women take on all the cumbersome, minor tasks without being asked, while guys never do. Doesn´t matter if they're new or the youngest - they never do anything they're not told to do. But why do women simply take things upon themselves?”
― Cho Nam-Joo, 82년생 김지영

“This was a time when the government had implemented birth control policies called “family planning” to keep population growth under control. Abortion due to medical problems had been legal for ten years at that point, and checking the sex of the fetus and aborting females was common practice, as if “daughter” was a medical problem.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“Just as putting the care of your child in another’s hands doesn’t mean you don’t love your child, quitting and looking after your child doesn’t mean you have no passion for your career.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982