Gu Byeong-mo > Quotes

“Maybe all living beings get to experience a bright shining moment at least once in their lives, precisely because they all crumble like overripe fruit, disappear like fireworks in the night sky.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, The Old Woman with the Knife

“The average life span can’t be the yardstick against which to measure an old person’s health. The increase in average life expectancy is merely due to the ability of science and medicine to delay death. As the focus is on prolonging life without having fully considered its quality, an old person living in a society with an average life span of one hundred years is like a prophetic shaman who forgets to include “pretty and young” when praying for eternal life and forever ends up with a wrinkly face and a hunched back.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, The Old Woman with the Knife

“Overwrought emotions are invisible to the naked eye and could rise endlessly like a hydrogen filled balloon. The similarity between emotion and balloons was that they imploded once far out of sight. Compared to that, reality was so dry and depressing, like a swing or a bouncy ball - no matter how high it went, it was still within sight, and always came down, unable to free itself from the pull of the earth.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“The essence of life is continuous loss and abrasion that leaves behind traces of what used to be, like streaks of chalk on a chalkboard.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, The Old Woman with the Knife

“Considering we live in a society where market value is everything, whether you're selling matter or soul, I suppose it's not that surprising that one could build a business with magic products.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“Stories with just a dash of sugar expand like cotton candy until they end up soggy and sticky.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, The Old Woman with the Knife

“When we are little, our underdeveloped intelligence makes it difficult for us to distinguish reality from fiction. But past a certain age, the human mind finds itself in a state of confusion brought on by the clash between expectation and reality. The majority gives up the fairy tale after a brief indulgence in the fantasy, and a small minority either hangs itself or goes insane. I was one of the majority.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“So this is wht it’s like on the subway on Friday nights.

So, Ryu, it might not be my time to join you yet.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, The Old Woman with the Knife

“A child's work was to pass the time in any way possible while steadily growing the number of cells in their body. An adult's work was to watch that child and mostly to suffer through that time, to let it pass by, then turn a new page. You'd encourage the child to draw an odd new shape. To colour it an unexpected hue. All while your own existence grew fuzzier by the day, until you were reduced to a sketch of yourself, and in the end, you were rubbed out by an eraser.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Apartment Women

“You cannot grow new skin without being wounded first.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“She felt like a ball being smacked around in three-cushion billiards, and if she didn't do something soon, both about this feeling and her rage toward Sangnak, who was doing a whole lot of nothing despite having signed them up for this, she would go insane.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Apartment Women

“The past, like a tangled ball of yarn, eventually straightened itself out. I'd been strong so far, and I would continue to be. I knew that the accident that made the Time Rewinder unusable made me who I was today. My life may be like a piece of gum someone chewed and spat out, but I would endure it and extract every last molecule of sweetness from it.”
― Gu Byeong-mo

“No one was at fault. From the start we'd already made up our minds about how to deal with each other instead of trying to make nice and get along. Mrs Bae chose control and harassment, and I chose cynicism and indifference.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“Even the gods cannot bring back the dead. If you're so desperate, go see them.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“Whatever you've done to me so far, I'll think of it as the price I have to pay for my decision. It's too late to turn things back now. You can have this space all to yourselves. You can dream of a happy future here. I won't hold it against you for not including me in the picture. I don't think the animosity will get me anywhere anyway. But promise me on thing: leave me alone from now on.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“The best plan of action for domestic peace would have been to stay within our boundaries. Show only an appropriate amount of interest, participate in the dozen or so family functions - birthdays of older family members, memorial days, holidays - with as little friction as possible, and act the part of good, responsible family members. For me, this was role play with an expiration date. Simply put, I figured time would pass and a dynamic would soon form whether or not I did anything about it, and so there was no need for me to particularly endear myself to her or keep her at arm's length.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“Except for fires and traffic accidents leading to PTSD, emotional distress is usually caused by a combination of factors that cannot be narrowed down to just one.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“She witnessed from up close just how much damage a soul sustains when one's family is torn away, how that life withers like the skin peeled off an apple. Though it's just a feeling, she sensed from the client a deep sorrow - the aimlessness of a vine that has lost something to climb.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, The Old Woman with the Knife

“I determined the course of action with my long-term plan in mind, making calculations in preparation for my to-be-determined date of departure.

But then, I must have pressed the wrong button somewhere because my life began to go wildly off course.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“I wished I could tell him. I was disappointed in myself that I couldn't”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“Moja przyjaciółka ma z przeszklonego balkonu widok na rzekę. Wszyscy zazdrościli jej, kiedy wrzuciła zdjęcie na Facebooka, ale ku zaskoczeniu wielu powiedziała, że nie można zbyt długo wpatrywać się w taki widok. Że jak się za długo patrzy, to ma się ochotę skoczyć. I że szum fal to w rzeczywistości pieśń syren.”
― Gu Byeong-Mo, Agami

“Life can't be quantified and divided. You can't approach it by saying, I'm thinking about this one issue this much, so you have to think about it exactly this much too.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Apartment Women

“Sometimes, there was nothing you could do but let things run their course.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“Father say definitely that fairy-tale stepmothers absolutely do not exist in real life. I doubt there's any word in this world as oppressive as 'absolutely'. Fairy tales may be fiction, but they aren't complete nonsense either. Times and civilizations may come and go, but human nature does not change dramatically.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“Mrs Bae's actions were a little misguided, but those were her own endeavors to become my mother (her idea of motherhood was having complete control, but nevertheless). IF I had harboured no hint of resentment towards Father's decision and simply gone along with everything she desired in compliance with traditional family form and values, would things have turned out differently?”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“When people come across Cinderella characters in movies who suffer silently and let the abuse continue, they say, 'What the hell is wrong with the moron? Why live like that? Just tell on the stepmother and get the hell out of there!' But even as people say this, they know very well that those who expose injustice often suffer more injustice, that one cannot survive without financial support, and that certain forms of abuse one has no choice but to endure to achieve one's goals.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“Negative or positive, a powerful emotion should always be handled with care. The source of energy that ignites irrational behaviour generally has its roots in desire. As all religions have shown us from ancient times, powerful love with low boiling points often lead to aggression and violence.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“She isn't going to show her nails to anyone. Not that she has anyone to show them to. Who knows, though? Maybe someone will see these nails as she taps her senior's pass on the bus or in the subway station, as she pays for a pack of gum at the convenience store, in these small moments of ordinary life. Maybe someone will spot the nails, then look up at her face, eyes widening in surprise. Maybe they will stay silent or clear their throat awkwardly, unable to verbalize their bias that it's not an appropriate look for someone her age. But right now, she likes these works of art placed on her broken, bruised, warped nails. Even more so because they're not real and will shine brightly, briefly, before disappearing... Maybe all living beings get to experience a bright shining moment at least once in their lives, precisely because they all crumble like overripe fruit, disappearing like fireworks in the night sky.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, The Old Woman with the Knife

“One can't be territorial about things the never had to begin with , or things that were taken away from them very early.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Piekarnia czarodzieja

“People always ask about other people's goals without knowing their own. Do you even know what you're doing right now? You don't even know where you're going, but you just keep moving forward.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, The Old Woman with the Knife