The Melancholy of Untold History Quotes

“Am I . . .” the storyteller began, “am I imagining you . . . or are you imagining me?” “I don’t know,” the historian replied. “Perhaps we are two versions of a third, the one who is imagining both of us, as Darkbloom might have put it.”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History

“Ah yes, all unfinished stories make you sad.” “That’s why we are driven to finish our work. To escape that sadness.” “To escape the melancholy of untold history.”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History

“All unfinished stories make me sad.”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History

“But loyalty is a quality that is more complex than people realize. It is not an absolute virtue that all good people must follow, for even a virtuous person may commit evil by being loyal to a wicked person. For the wise, it must be balanced by the sound judgment of whether the person you are giving it to is worthy of it.”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History

“Those moments happen, and then they inevitably fade in all but imperfect memory.”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History

“Can you feel the truth of my words? Can you feel it? Can you feel that our home is there, together, and not here, apart? “Can you feel it?”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History

“She stared at him before she leaned over and kissed him deeply on the lips. “I’m not going to leave you,” she told him. “I’m going to stay with you. I’m not going to fade away from you.”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History

“It’s all right,” he whispered in her ear before holding her even closer, wishing to melt into her so that the moment would last and last.”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History

“He knew then that despite the real depth of her feelings for him, she was there out of sympathy and care, and that it could never go beyond that. That understanding brought a new pain to his already broken heart, but that too felt inevitable in the life he was destined to lead.”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History

“I’m a straw man, he thought, put together by myself.”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History

“Given the dearth of direct accounts by the victims, she asserts that following the standard rules of historical scholarship makes one complicit in the silencing of the oppressed.”
― Minsoo Kang, The Melancholy of Untold History