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

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