184 Quotes by Min Jin Lee

Man, life’s going to keep pushing you around, but you have to keep playing.

It was much smaller than her own, but everyone seemed closer, as if each member were organically attached to one seamless body, whereas her enormous extended family felt like cheerfully mismatched Lego bricks in a large bucket.

Japan would save China by bringing technological advancements to a rural economy; Japan would end poverty in Asia and make it prosper; Japan would protect Asia from the pernicious hands of Western imperialism; and only Germany, Japan’s true and fearless ally, was fighting the evils of the West.

The penalties incurred for the mistakes you made had to be paid out in full to the members of your family.

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.

For people like us, home doesn’t exist.

One of the nice things about getting older is that you come to understand that you can integrate multiple aspects of your life together. When you're young, you think everything has to be binary, as that's exactly how you feel at that age.

If I meet a wise person, I think, 'Yes, tell me more about parenting, about marriage, about how to stay in love. Tell me more about how to be a decent person living in a world that's filled with chaos.'

Pachinko, like all gambling, is rigged. The house always wins. It's a central metaphor of life. It's rigged, but you keep playing.