Aura

“Dora found beauty in everything. She found nature’s magnificent work and incredible symmetry in a turtle’s carapace, or a stork’s egg, or an autumn reed from a swamp. How wonderful, she would often say. I understood the meaning of the word, but I could never feel the splendor it carried.”
― Won-pyung Sohn, Almond

“But books were different. They had lots of blanks. Blanks between words and even between lines. I could squeeze myself in there and sit, or walk, or scribble down my thoughts. It didn’t matter if I had no idea what the words meant. Turning the pages was half the battle.”
― Won-pyung Sohn, Almond

“Tout serait possible, tout si tu étais capable d’aimer. Je dis bien : capable d’aimer comme on dirait capable de marcher. Le fait que tu ne parles jamais, ce qui m’a tellement frappée, vient de ça aussi, de ce manque à dire, d’avoir à dire. Peut‑être est‑ce un retard seulement, je l’espère. Tu n’es même pas méchant. Je suis beaucoup plus méchante que toi. Mais j’ai en moi, dans le même temps, l’amour, cette disposition particulière irremplaçable de l’amour. Tu ne l’as pas. Tu es déserté de ça.”
― Claire Marin, Ruptures

“Books took me to places I could never go otherwise. They shared the confessions of people I'd never met and lives I'd never witnessed. The emotions I could never feel, and the events I hadn't experienced could all be found in those volumes.”
― Won-pyung Sohn, Almond