Where we are from… [s]tories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro.
ADAM JOHNSONWhere we are from… [s]tories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro.
ADAM JOHNSONConjure 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 JOHNSONWhat’s less romantic than staring alone at a blank screen? And edgy? I’ve changed the cat little because I didn’t know what my characters were going to say next.
ADAM JOHNSONThere, as a youth, your aptitude towards certain jobs is measured, and the rest of your life is dictated, whether you’ll be a fisherman or a farmer or an opera singer.
ADAM JOHNSONThe death of dictator Kim Jong-Il has cast all eyes on North Korea, a country without literature or freedom or truth.
ADAM JOHNSONWriting 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[I]n communism, you’d threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.
ADAM JOHNSONHad she never been hungry enough to eat a flower? Did she not know that you could eat daisies, daylilies, pansies, and marigolds?
ADAM JOHNSON. . . nobody every taught you loyalty . . .
ADAM JOHNSONBut, 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 JOHNSON“A name isn’t a person.” Ga said. “Don’t ever remember someone by their name.
ADAM JOHNSONAll the lessons you need to learn in life, he said, will be taught to you by your enemy.
ADAM JOHNSONThe darkness inside your head is something your imagination fills with stories that have nothing to do with the real darkness around you.
ADAM JOHNSONAll the human actions we think of as essential to a character – had be censored by the self lest they be punished by the state.
ADAM JOHNSONI am a champion standing over the shadow of my former self.
ADAM JOHNSONActing upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings
ADAM JOHNSON