Pavane for a Dead Princess Quotes

“Why do we learn things we'll never use? Why are we taught f(x+y) = f(x) + f(y)? Why are we made to memorize the decline and fall or royal dynasties but not stories of people who've experienced and overcome heartbreak? Why do we answer dozens of questions about the layers of the earth but not of what lies within ourselves? Why do we break down the cellular anatomies of amoebas and plankton but not the anatomy of pain? Why are we told to win, before we're told to overcome ourselves? Why are we lectured on English and French grammar, before we can learn what it is we really need to hear in life? Why are we taught to compete, not cooperate? Why are we forced to compare and ask, what grade did you get, what place did you finish in, whose clothes are you wearing, where did you go to school, where do you work? Why does not being at the top automatically mean you've failed? Why do we feel the need to look good on paper, and who decides what's written on this "paper"? Why can't everyone just be left alone? Why can't everyone just stop running? Who is making us feel more shame with every ounce of envy? Who is this elusive Pied Piper at the head of the pack, luring everyone with his pipe? And just who and where am I?”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“The world we know is a measure of our own experience. To someone who's worked underground his entire life, the underground will be all he knows of the world. That's why people shouldn't theorize about the meaning of life or suggest one way to live your life because a person's world is defined by his own experience and no one else's. No two person can have the same life; no two people can be the same. Once someone starts saying otherwise, you know he's heading straight to bullshit boulevard.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“Snow erases everything. Sometimes, it covers up things that can rot and disappear. For a little while, snow helps us to remember the memories we keep scattered in our hearts.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“Just as how you can never rake all the dead leaves, no matter how hard you try, you can never recover all your memories. Some pieces of me will always stay buried underneath time.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“A life without love isn't a life; it's an act. Most people go through the motions of life to act out the life they believe they want. They're bored, so they save money. They're bored so they go shopping. Still bored, they go shopping again. And again. I truly believe that dictators, warmongers, and people who yell all the time do so because they've failed at love. In those days, everyone sang of a better life, but it wasn't a life they wanted. It was the act of life. After failing at the one chance I had at a real life, I'd fallen back to acting, along with the rest of the world.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“I agree beauty must be appreciated. I also know not everyone can be the same. What I find unfair, though, is why did the world tell us we're all equal? Why does it behave as if we're living under equal conditions? If someone is to be measured against a yardstick, shouldn't the yardstick be something that can be overcome by effort? No one's appreciated me for anything I've done, I've only been judged on my looks.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“People love beautiful faces. They say God loves everyone, but people don't. There might be some who do, but, as far as I know, the people I've encountered in my lifetime certainly do not love everyone.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“There are many ways to deal with pain. You can protect the wound and wait until it heals or, at the very worst, remove the inflamed area and suture the wound. But in my case, the world never gave me time to heal. They took turns clawing and hacking at my wound.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“I always saw every moment as the last. That was my way of lessening future pain.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“I'd turned into someone who realized that when a loved one leaves, she'll take with her the tree inside of you that was now inhabiting every single inch of you. Your heart will be left in tatters and caked with mud, like a tree ripped from its place. And where the tree once was, there would only be a gaping hole. It was a painful and crushing thought. Only those who've had those trees inside of them have the right to discuss the astronomical losses and profits life throws at us.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“Are humans really a collective failure? Or are we a success? What defines failure and success? Do humans ever get to see the dark side of the moon? Do humans ever see what's inside of themselves? How were we able to go to the moon? Can it be even those men who walked on the surface of the moon will never set foot on the surface of their inner selves?”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“Then, as now, there are times in life that not even we can understand.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“What I did realize was that once you've loved and lost, your heart is left tattered and frayed as the insides of a worn old sneaker. And no amount of laundry in the world can ever make the sneaker look brand new again. All you can do is lay it out under the sun or store it in a cool, dry place.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“The only times we ever truly see anything is when it's too late. Not until the arrival of death do we realize that the dying person has a soul. Only upon sensing that the soul is abut to leave do we take a good look and whisper to ourselves, it's fading away.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“Every one of us is hiding behind layers. What we know to be true of each other is just one small part of that person. We're all blindly groping just one part of the elephant, at what little we know of each other.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“The more we regret our past, the more our memories are left wanting.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“You're the lucky one if you only need to witness the pain and not experience it firsthand. Unless the pain is yours, you can't be hurt by someone else's suffering, even if it's a person you love.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“Humans haven't abandoned this habit of going into denial and calling something by a different name. No wonder most marriages lack love. It's incredibly rare to find people who can love one another; they're as few in numbers as billionaires or men of power or film stars. Despite that, everyone continues to delude themselves and look the other way because, in fact, no one can live without love. No one can live when they're not loved. They desperately want to love and be loved, even when they're desperately chasing profit. That's the big dilemma.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“I couldn't help but think that the world is indeed as he had described, with everyone stomping on each other, trying to pull ahead and leaving the others in the dust. It's the rats that kill each other as they scramble along; the Pied Piper never turns around. To him, it doesn't matter whether they're great rats, lean rats, gay, young, friskier; they're just rats. No matter how much the rats compete, they'll always be rats. Rats who believe they're practicing majority rule.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“Humans are strange creatures indeed, I thought to myself. They can only rest once they've compared themselves to someone else and confirmed what they thought to be true. They 're following the tunes of the Pied Piper, but they're in denial.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“Capitalism always needs a hero. It needs a Pied Piper who can rally others into living better lives. Capitalism always has a star fronting it. It needs a Pied Piper exhorting everyone to pretty themselves up. Oh, play the pipe, Pied Piper! Play us the pipe! It's in the back of the pack where the chase and competition begin. The pushing, the shoving, and the stampeding occur at the back. None of the rats can ever overtake Pied Piper.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“In ancient times, slaves had nothing else to do but work. In modern times, slaves have to shop too. Slaves have to go to college. Slaves have to look pretty. They have to buy cars and homes. The minute I start college, the world's threshold goes up. The second I buy a car, the moment I purchase a home, the world's threshold will go up again. Why didn't I see this? The moment someone envies someone else, the world's threshold goes up. Even as someone is busy trying to be like someone else, the world's threshold is busy going up. The minute someone puts down someone else for their looks, the world is made a harder place to live in. The second someone puts down someone else for their education, his children will have to face a higher threshold. The second life is brushed aside as something not to be fretted over; life as they know it disappears. The moment a certain way is declared as the one right way to live, it automatically becomes the only way to live. What are slaves? They are bound by something, forced to work their entire lives.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“It was much like the world of men or perhaps the world of boys, where order is dictated by whoever is strongest. I could understand the same struggle for superiority, the submission and the idea that somehow your own power becomes stronger, depending on the company you keep.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“The idea of the "middle class" was becoming a hot social topic at the time, and one had to drive a car that was at least a certain kind of car, make at least a certain amount of money, and have at least a certain kind of life to be seen as living a life worth living. I wondered who was raising the bar and fanning the flames. I wondered who was being destroyed by this trend and who was profiting from it. Capitalism operates on the wheels of shame and is driven by the forces of envy.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“In measuring how close or how far they are from one another in attaining the goals they've set out for themselves, they vacillate between envy and scorn.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“Mechanically, I moved between work and home, just passing the time. That became my life. I worked, ate though I didn't feel like it, struggled, and slept. On the surface, it looked like I was living a busy life. But it wasn't a real life.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“Yohan was right when he said humans are strange, and she was right when she said we all carry darkness inside of us. Humans are strange. Life is strange. And the world is strange beyond measure.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“I dreamed of the life we might have, even as I was afraid of the changes and disappointed at some of the things that occured. To be honest, I don't believe in that life. I don't believe life is about getting everything you want. I believe life is about protecting and cherishing the things you worked hard to get.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“To this day, children frighten me. Because they don't know any better, they can attack without remorse or inhibition. And there are many adults in this world who still think as children. Even if a sage were to expound on the precious value of life, my life can't be separated from the whims of those people. It's bound to them.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess

“What defines a successful life? A successful life is one in which more time is spent loving someone than is spent sitting on the toilet. Everyone should shout their 'I love you's' more loudly and more often than whatever sounds they make on the toilet.”
― Min-gyu Park, Pavane for a Dead Princess