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“I felt I’d gotten the interaction all wrong. I wanted her to wake up and ask me the right questions. I would have told her that I knew she’d done the best she could, the best anyone could. I would have told her that I felt guilty every day about the hours I spent away from her, about the times I wanted to be away from her and the horrible, stupefying sadness that filled the room where she was slowly losing herself. I would have told her I felt guiltiest of all that part of me wanted this to finally be over, so I could begin to remember her the way she used to be, instead of the way she was now. But her eyes stayed closed.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?

“To be a boy opened doors that would never open for me, shielded him in a way where my own status as a woman had stripped me naked.”
― June Hur, The Red Palace

“Another revelation: how much laughter is a part of grief. Laughter is tightly braided into our family argot, and now we laugh remembering my father, but somewhere in the background there is a haze of disbelief. The laughter trails off. The laughter becomes tears and becomes sadness and becomes rage. I am unprepared”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief

“Hopefully in the next lifetime, we will meet again,” he said, glancing down at me. “And in kinder circumstances.” I gazed up and offered him a small smile. “I hope so, too.”
― June Hur, A Crane Among Wolves