But, in North Korea, it’s just the opposite. There’s one story. It’s written by the Kim regime. And 23 million people are conscripted to be secondary characters.
ADAM JOHNSONThe darkness inside your head is something your imagination fills with stories that have nothing to do with the real darkness around you.
More Adam Johnson Quotes
-
-
Imagine a world in which no writer has written a literary novel in sixty years.
ADAM JOHNSON -
Like putting a name to my problems would solve anything
ADAM JOHNSON -
The darkness inside your head is something your imagination fills with stories that have nothing to do with the real darkness around you.
ADAM JOHNSON -
Once the dust clears you will be standing tall, a champion, a victor. NOTHING will be able to knock you down once you’ve taken the biggest hits this life has to offer, so come on life, BRING IT!
ADAM JOHNSON -
Still, I’d thought I’d had a unique look at North Korea, only to discover I was wrong.
ADAM JOHNSON -
That hungry enough, a person could consume the bright faces of violas, even the stems of dandelions and the bitter hips of roses?
ADAM JOHNSON -
Conjure up all the strength you have and drive through whatever it is keeping you on your knees. Build up the strength and your knees may never buckle again!
ADAM JOHNSON -
I am a champion standing over the shadow of my former self.
ADAM JOHNSON -
Writing is hard work, and if anything’s true about the process, it’s that fact that a good story is hard to find and even trickier to get on paper.
ADAM JOHNSON -
Today, tomorrow,” she said. “A day is nothing. A day is just a match you strike after the ten thousand matches before it have gone out.
ADAM JOHNSON -
I know it really sounds cheesy, but I did feel a duty to try to tell the stories of people who couldn’t speak for themselves.
ADAM JOHNSON -
Use your imagination only on the future, never on the present or the past.
ADAM JOHNSON -
Imagine a place where not a single person has read a book that is truly about the character at its center.
ADAM JOHNSON -
. . . nobody every taught you loyalty . . .
ADAM JOHNSON -
All the lessons you need to learn in life, he said, will be taught to you by your enemy.
ADAM JOHNSON -
“A name isn’t a person.” Ga said. “Don’t ever remember someone by their name.
ADAM JOHNSON -
What good’s a captive without her captor?
ADAM JOHNSON -
And secretly, he’d be wise to start practicing the piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change.
ADAM JOHNSON -
I’d known that the visit would be highly scripted and that genuine interactions with citizens wouldn’t be possible, since it’s illegal for them to speak with foreigners.
ADAM JOHNSON -
But people do things to survive, and then after they survive, they can’t live with what they’ve done.
ADAM JOHNSON -
To keep someone alive, you put them inside you, you put their face on your heart. Then, no matter where you are, they’re always with you because they’re a part of you.”
ADAM JOHNSON -
For an entire populace, change, growth, and spontaneity were dangerous.
ADAM JOHNSON -
Orphans are the only ones who get to choose their fathers, and they love them twice as much.
ADAM JOHNSON -
Acting upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings
ADAM JOHNSON -
Life brings what it brings. I might be young but I’ve learnt this: prepare for each blind corner with your strongest shoulder dropped, ready to smash through whatever is thrown at you next.
ADAM JOHNSON -
A good story feels both surprising and inevitable, fresh and familiar.
ADAM JOHNSON