Pachinko Quotes

“Living everyday in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Learn everything. Fill your mind with knowledge—it’s the only kind of power no one can take away from you.” Hansu never told him to study, but rather to learn, and it occurred to Noa that there was a marked difference. Learning was like playing, not labor.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“History has failed us, but no matter.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“No one is clean. Living makes you dirty.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“We cannot help but be interested in the stories of people that history pushes aside so thoughtlessly.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“a man must learn to forgive—to know what is important, that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“There was consolation: The people you loved, they were always there with you, she had learned. Sometimes, she could be in front of a train kiosk or the window of a bookstore, and she could feel Noa's small hand when he was a boy, and she would close her eyes and think of his sweet grassy smell and remember that he had always tried his best. At those moments, it was good to be alone to hold on to him.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“...a God that did everything we thought was right and good wouldn't be the creator of the universe. He would be our puppet.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Patriotism is just an idea, so is capitalism or communism. But ideas can make men forget their own interests. And the guys in charge will exploit men who believe in ideas too much.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“There's nothing fucking worse than knowing that you're just like everybody else.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Sunja-ya, a woman’s life is endless work and suffering. There is suffering and then more suffering. It’s better to expect it, you know. You’re becoming a woman now, so you should be told this. For a woman, the man you marry will determine the quality of your life completely. A good man is a decent life, and a bad man is a cursed life—but no matter what, always expect suffering, and just keep working hard. No one will take care of a poor woman—just ourselves.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“You are very brave, Noa. Much, much braver than me. Living every day in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Noa had been a sensitive child who had believed that if he followed all the rules and was the best, then somehow, the hostile world would change its mind. His death may have been her fault for having allowed him to believe such cruel ideals.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“There was more to being something than just blood.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Fill your mind with knowledge—it’s the only kind of power no one can take away from you.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“because she would not believe that she was no different than her parents, that seeing him as only Korean—good or bad—was the same as seeing him only as a bad Korean. She could not see his humanity, and Noa realized that this was what he wanted most of all: to be seen as human.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“In Seoul, people like me get called Japanese bastards, and in Japan, I'm just another dirty Korean no matter how much money I make or how nice I am. So what the fuck?”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“A woman's lot is to suffer.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“In the end, your belly was your emperor.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Why did her family think pachinko was so terrible? Her father, a traveling salesman, had sold expensive life insurance policies to isolated housewives who couldn't afford them, and Mozasu created spaces where grown men and women could play pinball for money. Both men had made money from chance and fear and loneliness. Every morning, Mozasu and his men tinkered with the machines to fix the outcomes--there could only be a few winners and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones. How could you get angry at the ones who wanted to be in the game? Etsuko had failed in this important way--she had not taught her children to hope, to believe in the perhaps-absurd possibility that they might win. Pachinko was a foolish game, but life was not.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“It was not Hansu that she missed, or even Isak. What she was seeing again in her dreams was her youth, her beginning, and her wishes--so this is how she became a woman.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Noa stared at her. She would always believe that he was someone else, that he wasn't himself but some fanciful idea of a foreign person; she would always feel like she was someone special because she had condescended to be with someone everyone else hated. His presence would prove to the world that she was a good person, an educated person, a liberal person. Noa didn't care about being Korean when he was with her; in fact, he didn't care about being Korean or Japanese with anyone. He wanted to be just himself, whatever that meant; he wanted to forget himself sometimes. But that wasn't possible. It would never be possible with her.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Yes, of course. If you love anyone, you cannot help but share his suffering. If we love our Lord, not just admire him or fear him or want things from him, we must recognize his feelings; he must be in anguish over our sins. We must understand this anguish. The Lord suffers with us. He suffers like us. It is a consolation to know this. To know that we are not in fact alone in our suffering.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Life makes you pay...everybody pays something”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Her father had taught her not to judge people on such shallow points: What a man wore or owned had nothing to do with his heart and character.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Neither had realized the loneliness each had lived with for such a long time until the loneliness was interrupted by genuine affection.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Even if there were hundred bad Japanese, if there was one good one, he refused to make a blanket statement”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“All her life, Sunja had heard this sentiment from other women, that they must suffer—suffer as a girl, suffer as a wife, suffer as a mother—die suffering. Go-saeng—the word made her sick.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“He was suffering, and in a way, he could manage that; but he had caused others to suffer, and he did not know why he had to live now and recall the series of terrible choices that had not looked so terrible at the time. Was that how it was for most people?”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko