The Liberators Quotes

“In some ways we freed ourselves only to imprison others. As humankind, we agreed freedom is a resource with a controlled, limited supply.”
― E.J. Koh, The Liberators

“People with high moral authority are dangerous," Jennie said into my ear, her words like silk spilling out of a magician's hat. "Their egos depend on their ability to see themselves as moral, so they become dictators just as quickly as they become leaders.”
― E.J. Koh, The Liberators

“Morioka reimen summoned for Jennie what she imagined as the cocoon taste of the world she had left behind, like the wallpaper of hand-drawn flowers at her apartment outside Pyongyang, coated with a patina throughout the years. The apartment and its wallpaper conjured the carrel of lives that passed through, and the sharp taste inside the steel bowl reflected an impossible condition of life, when all that toughness and suspicion had come down on her so young she had little memory of her childhood, except how one can cry from a thousand eyes, how in the midst of human destruction, full-toned voices broke into song, each of them apart from and a part of longing and hesitation and indignation, roiling to an intensity of hope.”
― E.J. Koh, The Liberators

“The desire to be rebellious fades with the desire to belong.”
― E.J. Koh, The Liberators

“I comfort Henry to soothe his need for his mother, and soothe my need for mine. How many times would Henry have to feel discomfort before he understood me? Why do I want him, just a baby, to meet me where no one else can - a baby I carry in my arms like a Bible?”
― E.J. Koh, The Liberators

“By an early age, I could read and write in six languages. I found a tool - an ink brush, a twig, or my stub finger - and used it to draw a character on parchment, dirt, or air. When one line touched another, my heart reached my fingertips to impart meaning. At five, it was for pleasure that I left words all over town: on a tree, I carved 'tree'; in the river, I spelled 'river' in pebbles; on my mother's dress, I inked 'dress.' At some point, my mother set me down and didn't pick me up again. On my mother's grave, I wrote 'grave.”
― E.J. Koh, The Liberators