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1 " I will build myself up so high in such a short time that when he leaves me, I will become a lightning storm, a nuclear apocalypse.I will not come out of this with nothing. "
― Frances Cha , If I Had Your Face
2 " I would live your life so much better than you, if I had your face. "
3 " Rich people are fascinated by happiness,” she said. “It’s something they find maddening. "
4 " Most people have no capacity for comprehending true darkness, and then they try to fix it anyway. "
5 " For all its millions of people, Korea is the size of a fishbowl and someone is always looking down on someone else. That's just the way it is in this country, and the reason why people ask a series of rapid-fire questions the minute they meet you. Which neighborhood do you live in? Where did you go to school? Where do you work? Do you know so-and-so? They pinpoint where you are on the national scale of status, then spit you out in a heartbeat. "
6 " In New York, you can talk to anyone about anything at any time and have a conversation so long you'll fall a little in love with that person, and then never see them again. "
7 " ...you have to work and work and work for a salary that isn’t even enough to buy a house or pay for childcare, and you sit at a desk until your spine twists, and your boss is somehow incompetent and a workaholic at the same time and at the end of the day you have to drink to bear it all. "
8 " In America, one of my professors said once that the best art comes from an unbearable life—if you live through it, that is. "
9 " Why would you want to bring more children into this world so that they can suffer and be stressed their entire lives? And they’ll disappoint you and you will want to die. And you’ll be poor "
10 " It's basic human nature, this need to look down on someone to feel better about yourself. "
11 " I have no desire to stay past midnight every night for a company that treats me like an ant to be crushed by the heel of a shoe. "
12 " I wanted to reach out and shake her by the shoulders. Stop running around like a fool, I wanted to say. You have so much and you can do anything you want.I would live your life so much better than you, if I had your face. "
13 " I know, because I was in love with a poor man once. He could not pay to spend time with me and I could not afford to spend time with him. "
14 " But I grew up not knowing the difference between a bearable life and an unbearable life, and by the time I discovered there was such a thing, it was too late. "
15 " I want them to think I’m stupid,” she said to me once. “No expectation is nice. It gives you a lot of time to think. "
16 " I AM GLAD, then, that I will never love someone again in this way. I would not survive a second time. In America, one of my professors said once that the best art comes from an unbearable life – if you live through it, that is. "
17 " that the hate mothers-in-law harbor toward their daughters-in-law is built into the genes of all women in this country. The bile festers below the surface, dormant but still lurking, until the son becomes of marriageable age; the resentment at being pushed aside, the anger of becoming second in their sons’ affections. It was not just my grandmother; I have seen it time and time again. That is the one storyline "
18 " The only gentlemen I ever see are in those dramas on TV. Those men are kind. They protect you and cry and stand up to their families for you "
19 " Sometimes, when he is holding me and I feel like I am liquid in his arms, I wonder if anything else in my life will seem real after this. It is as if I traveled beyond the earth and reached out and touched a burning star, and it is both endurable and terrifying. "
20 " In a way, I will be glad when we are almost home and the scenery will turn into rice fields and farm plots, and I will be reminded of how far I have come, instead of what I cannot reach. "
