The Last Story of Mina Lee Quotes

“She wondered how many women had been trapped - in terrible marriages, terrible jobs, unbearable circumstances - simply because the world hadn't been designed to allow them to thrive on their own. Their decisions would always be scrutinized by the lives at which they were able to sacrifice themselves, their bodies, their pleasures and desires. A woman who imagined her own way out would always be ostracized for her own strength.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Choosing if and when and how to share the truth might be the deepest, most painful necessity of growing out into the world and into yourself.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“These were hard questions, questions she wasn’t even sure she was ready to ask out loud. But she had been presented with this rare opportunity, and in a way, she had been preparing for the answers her entire life. Maybe that’s what she had been doing this entire time—hardening herself for the truth. Some questions were never meant to be answered, yet ideally, pursuing them might at least shed light on how much you valued yourself, the need you might have to tell your own story, however fragmented it might be. It was okay to yearn for the impossible every now and then as long as in the yearning you discovered something about yourself.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Language itself was a home, a shelter, as well as a way of navigating the larger world.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“What was the point of learning a language that brought you into the fold of a world that didn’t want you? Did this world want her? No. It didn’t like the sound of her voice.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“And the whole world told women every day, If you are alone, you are no one. A woman alone is no one at all.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Sometimes, agreeing to the same lie is what makes a family family, Margot.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“How could they have known that one day their country would be split in two, severing them from their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, without any palpable end in sight?”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“A trip. A fall. A horrible way to die. To have survived all those traumas, those hardships—a war, an orphanage, immigration, being a single mother in a foreign country—only to die by something as mundane as a slipper or a shoe. It was terrible. It was all so very terrible.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“She didn’t need a language that wasn’t big enough for her, didn’t want to make room for her.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Many of them—with their blue eyes and tall noses—appeared intrinsically attractive because even white people who weren’t supermodels were at least white.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“If she thought of the labor and resources that went into each piece of fruit—the water, the light, the earth, the training and harvesting of each plant—a box of apples could be special, a sacred thing. Perhaps in this land of plenty, of myth and wide-open spaces, trucks and factories, mass production, we lost track of that: the miracle of an object as simple as a pear, nutritious and sweet, created by something as beautiful as a tree.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“It’s some kind of Korean immigrant rite of passage. National parks, reasons to wear hats and khaki, stuff like that. It’s like America America.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“She maneuvered a cart through the produce section, which featured boxes of fruits as gifts, amping up the volume and variety this time of year. She packed several Asian pears in a plastic tear-off bag, then moved on to the most perfect Fuyu persimmons, smooth, orange, and firm. She had always been embarrassed when her mother had given people such odd practical "Korean gifts" - the boxes of apples or even laundry detergent - when in reality, outside of America, these objects might have some rich symbolic relevance that perhaps Margot didn't understand.
If she thought of the labor and resources that went into each piece of fruit - the water, the light, the earth, the training and harvesting of each plant - a box of apples could be special, a sacred thing. Perhaps in this land of plenty, of myth and wide-open spaces, trucks and factories, mass production, we lost track of that: the miracle of an object as simple as a pear, nutritious and sweet, created by something as beautiful as a tree.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Her daughter would never understand why she couldn’t make the time to learn a language that would never accept her—especially at her age now. What would be the point? She was in her sixties and couldn’t find a job anywhere except at a swap meet or at a restaurant in Koreatown. She didn’t know a single English language speaker except for her daughter, who only visited once per year. What was the point of learning a language that brought you into the fold of a world that didn’t want you? Did this world want her? No. It didn’t like the sound of her voice.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Maybe it was the tiniest of things, at times, on a consistent basis, that kept us alive, and if she could not create such kindnesses for herself, couldn’t she allow someone else to do so for her?”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Beauty is a construct, but theory is not the reality we live, she thought. Theory didn’t live in the bones. Theory didn’t erase the years of self-scrutiny in a mirror and not seeing anyone at all, not a protagonist or a beauty, only a television sidekick, a speechless creature, who at best was “exotic,” desirable but simple and foreign. Growing up, she had often wondered, If only I had bigger eyes or brown hair instead of black. If only...”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“All of it would be shattered, too. Because their life would be part of the lie that this country repeated to live with itself—that fairness would prevail; that the laws protected everyone equally; that this land wasn’t stolen from Native peoples; that this wealth wasn’t built by Black people who were enslaved but by industrious white men, “our” founders; that hardworking immigrants proved this was a meritocracy; that history should only be told from one point of view, that of those who won and still have power.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“All of it would be shattered, too. Because their life would be part of the lie that this country repeated to live with itself - that fairness would prevail; that he laws protected everyone equally; that this land wasn't stolen from Native peoples; that this wealth wasn't built by industrious white men, "our" founders; that hardworking immigrants proved this was a meritocracy; that history should only be told from one point of view, that of those who won and still have power. So the city raged. Immolation was always a statement.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“They ate in silence for the rest of the meal. Outside, crickets sang.
They were two women by themselves, living in this house without husbands, and apparently without children, too. Boarders. Too many questions may lead to too much information, too much in common, too much pain.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Uh? How will a sobbed. "How will you find the people you lost? Her mother, who rarely cried, sobbed. "How will you find the people you lost?"
At the sight of her mother's face cracked open, Margot
rushed past her into the bathroom where she perched on the toilet, weeping about the impossibility of living with her mother, tyrannous but every now and then, unexpectedly transparent, leaking light from the disasters of her life--her single motherhood, her childhood as an orphan, the war, the hours and hours without a proper day off, without a vacation, that she put into the store.
Margot never knew what to do with the bright flashes of
who her mother was that would threaten to burn them all to the ground.
She could hear the squeak of the carpeted floor as her mother stood outside the bathroom, listening to Margot cry. Margot imagined her now-
her fingers pressed against the...”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim , The Last Story of Mina Lee

“In this country, it was easier to harm someone else than to stay alive. It was easier to take a life than to have one. Was she finally an American?”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“sometimes there was not one more hour, one more day, one more week in this life. Sometimes, all you had left was right now—the seconds ticking away.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“She didn’t want to think about her anymore. But if she stopped thinking about her, would that be a betrayal? How could she manage to love and honor people without those feelings tearing her apart? How could she continue to hold on to them without it destroying every bit of her, shredding every possibility and hope she might dare to have?”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“She did everything for so long within her power to avoid the reality, the pain of her mother, and now it came down on her in a deluge of confusing facts, images, and emotions.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“She had loved her mother more than anyone but was also deeply ashamed of her—her poverty, her foreignness, her language, the lack of agency in her life. She did not know how to love anyone, including herself, without shame.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Mrs. Baek had clearly suffered enough. She needed freedom. She didn’t deserve any more pain than what had already threatened to break her—an abusive husband, a stalker, a dead best friend. Crime and punishment. She would have to live with herself somehow, and escape Mr. Park, this city that sometimes chewed you up and spat you out.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Shhh, lower your voice. You’re like an animal,” he said. “Ha, that’s what women are like when they don’t have men around. They’re like animals.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“She had gotten her strength from her mother. Her mother was bold—moving to this country where she didn’t know the language and laws, falling in love, raising a daughter by herself.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“But back then, when you were going through so much, that’s how I survived in a way—by helping you and Margot. That way I didn’t have to think so much about my own problems anymore. I felt like I had escaped mine and that I had to be strong. For you two.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee