Quotes from Adam Johnson

Hidden inside the Junma's rigging and booms was a strong

It wasn't that I didn't know anyone's phone number—I didn't—it was that only at this moment did I realize I had no one to call. There wasn't a woman, a colleague, or even a relative that I had to contact. Didn't I have a single friend?

mayoimashita. Can you help me find my cat?—Watashi

And what was wrong with my memory? How come I didn't recollect how I spent these painful days, and why was I okay with the fact that I couldn't recall them? I preferred it this way, didn't I? Compared to forgetting, did living really stand a chance?

In this way, you'll live forever.

But the Americans ruin everything with cheese. They make it out of animal milk. Americans put it on everything—on their eggs at breakfast, on their noodles, they melt it on ground meat. They say Americans smell like butter, but no, it is cheese. With heat, it becomes an orange liquid.

It was nothing short of belonging, a feeling that wasn't particularly profound or intense

Ga thought of how difficult it was to come to see the lies you told yourself, the ones that allowed you to function and move forward. To really do it, you needed someone's help.

the sky. Finally, he looked down at them. "They're in space together," he said. "They're supposed to be our enemies, but they're up there laughing and screwing around." He lowered the directional and looked at Jun Do. "You were wrong," he said. "You were wrong—they are doing it for peace and fucking brotherhood.

My father said, "See, my mouth said that, but my hand, my hand was holding yours. If your mother ever must say something like that to me, in order to protect the two of you, know that inside, she and I are holding hands. And if someday you must say something like that to me, I will know it's not really you. That's inside. Inside is where the son and the father will always be holding hands.

It's okay if you can't make sense of that. I've tried and tried, but I can't grasp it, either. The most vital things we hide even from ourselves.

A group of stage mothers from the Children's Palace Theater was enlisted to make the gift baskets. While calfskin could not be found for the making of gloves, the most supple replacement—puppy—was chosen.

It's hard to imagine losing a family, to have someone you love just disappear like that.

Korean Sea, and it was the

To think what the Stasi went through to spy on us. Even they couldn't dream of a world in which citizens voluntarily carried tracking devices, conducted self-surveillance and reported on themselves, morning, noon and night.

which was impossible. How could a signal come from everywhere? Just like that, the broadcast seemed to

She and I were storytellers. Swapping stories constituted our good times. That's what sustained our marriage until, I guess, stories weren't enough.

Luckily, citizens, no animal keeps its benevolent eye on the Korean people like the crow. It won't let ours become a nation where people give names to canines, oppress others because of the color of their skin, and eat pharmaceutically sweetened pills to abort their babies.

Not only does the giving of coins to orphans rob them of their self-respect and Juche Spirit, it violates a central rule of good citizenship: Practice Self-Sufficiency.

If everyone who had it shitty and bit the dust became a fart," he said, "the world would stink to the treetops, you know what I mean?

in communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.

fucking motorcycles off the plane?" In darkness, they set down on the uninhabited island of

robe, snot running freely from her nose. "Go away," she said. "I'm afraid I can't do that," he said. "I

Even if we walked this path side by side, we must act alone on the outside, while on the inside, we would be holding hands.