The urge to create a fictional narrative is a mysterious one, and when an idea comes, the writer’s sense of what a story wants to be is only vaguely visible through the penumbra of inspiration.

To survive in this world, you got to be many times a coward but at least once a hero

Let this story be an inspiration when dealing with the weak-minded who share your communal housing blocks and the selfish who use all the soap in your group bathing wells. Know that change is achievable...

A name isn’t a person,’ Ga said. ‘Don’t ever remember someone by their name. To keep someone alive, you put them inside you, you put their face on your heart. Then, no matter where you...

Ga thought about reminding the Dear Leader that they lived in a land where people had been trained to accept any reality presented to them.

In this way, you’ll live forever.

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.

Use your imagination only on the future, never on the present or the past.

Ga thought of how difficult it was to come to see the lies you told yourself, the ones that allowed you to function and move forward.

[I]n communism, you’d threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.

A good story feels both surprising and inevitable, fresh and familiar.

When the dogs returned, the Senator gave them treats from his pocket, and Jun Do understood that in communism, you’d threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes

I wonder of what you must daily endure in America, having no government to protect you, no one to tell you what to do. Is it true you’re given no ration card, that you must...

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. What’s less romantic than staring alone...

Acts of heroism are easy—becoming a hero is a bitch.