Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master's Son Quotes

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

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

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.

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.

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.

This was the face that Ga had shown the world, that of a boy who had swallowed the things that had happened to him, but who wouldn’t understand what they meant for a long, long time.

The darkness inside your head is something your imagination fills with stories that have nothing to do with the real darkness around you

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

In this way, you’ll live forever.