People hated and killed each other back then. Now even those who survived are dying, leaving this world one by one. Unless we find a way to forgive one another, none of us will ever be able to see each other again. (2007: 88)

~ Hwang Sok-Yong

Hwang Sok-Yong Forgiveness Korean War

Even if you are alive somewhere, the absence of the other person who used to be there beside you obliterates your presence. Everything in the room, even the stars in the sky, can disappear in a second, changing one scene for another, just like in a dream.

~ Hwang Sok-Yong

Hwang Sok-Yong Death Death Of A Loved One Dreaming Hwang Sok Yong Loneliness Solitude The Old Garden

There is an old saying that goes 'Start by plucking a hair, end by killing a man'. It is also said, 'Two hands must meet to make a sound'. The atrocities that happened here weren't carried out by strangers - it was us, the people who'd once lived together harmoniously in the same village.They say it was the superstitious freaks who did it.No, it was Satan who did it.Come now, what sort of a ghost is that?Ryu Yosop replied, It is the black thing that lives in the heart of every man.

~ Hwang Sok-Yong

Hwang Sok-Yong Death Evil Korean War War

The blazing sun beat down on the concrete of the museum's front yard- Reverend Ryu Yosop felt as if the heat were sucking up all the moisture in his brain and heart. What different colors he and his brother Yohan must have used as each of them painted their own picture of home, of the carnage. These people have constructed yet a different vision of their own, Yosop thought to himself, but it all stems from the same nightmare, the one we created together.

~ Hwang Sok-Yong

Hwang Sok-Yong Korea Korean War Perspective War

The scene [Bruegel's 'Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'] is filled with a vast field, and a cow and a farmer plowing. In the left-hand corner is a tiny ocean the size of a palm, and there, I can barely make it out, the two legs of a man who fell headlong into the sea. This is called the Fall of Icarus. Compared to everyday life, the fall of an idealist who flew too high with candle-wax wings is an unremarkable tragedy.

~ Hwang Sok-Yong

Hwang Sok-Yong Hwang Sok Yong Idealism Perspective Pieter Bruegel The Fall Of Icarus The Old Garden Tragedy

Back then, I think, both sides were just very young. They needed to grow up enough to realize that thing get quite complicated in the business of living, that a lot of things require mutual understanding and compromise. I mean, when you get right down to it, all business for us men on earth is based on material things - so we've just got to work hard and share the fruits of our labors with one another. Only when that is done righteously can we render our faith honorably to God. Within a generation of adopting a school of thought in the name of New Learning, be it Christianity or socialism, we all became such ardent followers that we forgot the way of life we'd led for so long. (2007: 163)

~ Hwang Sok-Yong

Hwang Sok-Yong Christianity Korean War Socialism