Sindhu

“The combination of her tone, expression, angle of head tilt, position of shoulders, and her breathing sent them a message that was hard to summarize in one sentence, but, if Jiyoung tried anyway, it went something like this: How dare you try to take something that belongs to my precious grandson!”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“Koh Boonsoon did not resent her husband for having neither the ability nor the will to provide for his family. She truly believed he was a decent husband to her for not sleeping around and not hitting her.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“It didn’t occur to the child Jiyoung that her brother was receiving special treatment, and so she wasn’t even jealous. That’s how it had always been. There were times when she had an inkling of a situation not being fair, but she was accustomed to rationalizing things by telling herself that she was being a generous older sibling and that she shared with her sister because they were both girls. Jiyoung’s mother would praise the girls for taking good care of their brother and not competing for her love. Jiyoung thought it must be the big age gap. The more their mother praised, the more impossible it became for Jiyoung to complain.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“I don’t want my sons to be traumatized by what happened to their father or grandfathers or great-grandfathers, but everyone should know about the lives of those who came before them so that they can figure out why their fingers are bent or why sometimes they feel bone-crushingly sad for no reason that anyone else can see.”
― Craig Ferguson, Riding the Elephant: A Memoir of Altercations, Humiliations, Hallucinations, and Observations