David

“The deeply flushed midsummer sunlight, the strong, clear alcohol filling a dirty glass, a goat tethered with a rope, the enormous sides of a glitteringly white modern building, the solemn melody of the national orchestra, the slender-necked actress who was performing on the stage, the arc of a rainbow which, after a sudden shower, fell to the earth like an arrow from between the clouds, a sheepdog pressed flat under the wheel of a car, a herd of stubborn goats bobbing their heads with profound indifference, blue cloth fluttering in the wind, designating something sacred, a swarthy woman looking down on the street below from a first-floor window, her exposed chest leaning out over the wooden frame, cat-sized rats threading their way around the legs of market stalls, unlit signs and display windows, a sombrely lit butcher’s fridge, each dark red carcass still buttressed with the animal’s skeleton, Banchi’s printing shop, on the ground floor of a temple on the main street in the city centre, there Banchi makes picture postcards featuring his own translations of Indian sutras.”
― Bae Suah, Recitation

“and if she retreats from your indifference or from a smile or gesture you may have let slip, don’t spit on her footprints as if she were bad luck—even if she blocks your path for a moment, even if you feel a blind urge to escape your predicament by assaulting her, knocking her down, stomping on her, strangling her, disposing of her without a trace. Because even if you do all this, many other girls will notice a young man like you. Traumatized and deranged, they will follow you, crying “Brother!”
― Ch'oe Yun, There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Ch'oe Yun

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

“The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.”
― Noam Chomsky