WAITING - HA JIN

Waiting - Pg 296

His heart began aching. It dawned on him that he had never loved a woman wholeheartedly and that he had always been the loved one. This must have been the reason why he knew so little about love and women. In other words, emotionally he hadn't grown up. his instinct and ability to love passionately had withered away before they had had an opportunity to blossom. If only he had fallen in love soulfully just once in his life, even though it might have broken his heart, paralyzed his mind, made him live in a daze, bathed his face in tears, and drowned him in despair!

Waiting - Pg 288

Meanwhile Manna's eyes were wide open, watching the clouds being torn to strips by the bare branches waving outside the window. 

Waiting - Pg 286

Something in her chest snapped as tears flowed out of her eyes. It was so good to have a trustworthy friend in whose arms she could cry without feeling embarrassed, without being afraid of the kind of ridicule unleashed by the hostile world, without worrying about becoming the target of endless gossip and mockery, and without having to say, "Forgive me." For the first time she was weeping with abandon, like a child. Her tears soaked the front of his woolen vest. Her thick hair kept touching his chin. He grew tearful too and stroked the nape of her neck.

Waiting - Pg 259

The more she thought, the more wretched she felt. An intense loneliness overcame her, and the dim home seemed like a deserted sickroom. She felt as if the whole world were conspiring to make a fool of her. 

Waiting - Pg 184

If only she had had a house for herself, where she could cry to her heart's content and yell at the top of her lungs without being heard by others. But in this small room shared by four people, she kept her left hand around her throat all the while, until the weeping exhausted her and she fell asleep. 

Waiting - Pg 177

The moon was round and silvery, cleaving the clouds which were swaying like waves. Moonlight filtered through the naked branches and scattered dappled patches on the snow-covered ground. A few birds flew up in the darkness, their wings twanging and phosphorescent. Ahead of her, skeins of snow dust, blown up by the wing, were slithering and twisting. 

Waiting - Pg 167

I know your type. You're always afraid that people will call you a bad man. You strive to have a good heart. But what is a heart? Just a chunk of flesh that a dog can eat.

Waiting - Pg 166

What's the good of being a good man? You can't be nice to everybody, can you? In this case, damage is unavoidable. You have to choose which one of them to hurt.

Waiting - Pg 154

Finally he was satisfied with saying that the grass gathered the essence of heaven and earth, yin and yang, and the material and the spiritual, and that it unified the body and the soul, the living and the dead, celebrating the infinity and abundance of life. 

Waiting - Pg 119

"In the matter of love, I ought to follow my heart. Even birds may not become mates if you put them together in a cage, not to speak of us human beings."

Waiting - Pg 117

You just forget that the mountain is there and so awesome. You're too mindful of things and people around you. 

Waiting - Pg 79

She had been waiting, waiting, only for a beginning or an ending between them. But his life seemed to have been caught in a circle that he could not escape so as to establish a starting point again.