David

“I wonder about the collective soul of the widespread and artificially constructed new tribe known as the ‘city dweller’, who is no longer a part of any traditional society or race, and has never at any time held spiritual or religious beliefs which arise from any geographic specificity, or at least beliefs which are current only in a specific region, given that, even in regions where such beliefs had once held sway, the degree and duration of industrialisation meant not only that shamanism had lost its power but that access to collective memories of it had been completely cut off, with each individual inextricably bound up with things that would once have been foreign to them, psychological differences flattened, made to conform to an international standard now long accepted, a globally-current ‘enlightened’ standard that is considered the only one of value; the modern city dweller who has thus lost no few of their native, traditional, mythical elements, which defy explanation; the modern city dweller in whom the majority of us can now recognise ourselves.”
― Bae Suah, Recitation

“If you’re going to write about love, write it in pencil.”
― Han Yujoo, The Impossible Fairy Tale

“When I saw it, I was reminded of a passage by my favorite writer, Jang Jeongil: “We must kill the prodigal son. He brings worse things with him. Nothing makes us feel quite so small as the son who has returned. The true prodigal son must go, with nary a drop of water nor a crumb of bread, without even a camel, he must go to the ends of the desert and die there. And not just there, but everywhere!”
― Gong Jiyoung, Our Happy Time

“Every beautiful thing cracks and shatters and collapses and crumples and bleeds. If not now, it will eventually.”
― Han Yujoo, The Impossible Fairy Tale