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“As in we refuse to part by refusing to say goodbye, or as in we actually don’t part ways? (...) Is it somehow incomplete, the parting? (...) Is it deferred? The goodbye—or the closure? Indefinitely?”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“Sometimes, with some dreams, you awake and sense that the dream is ongoing elsewhere.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“It can be difficult to distinguish forbearance from resignation, sorrow from partial reconciliation, fortitude from loneliness. I thought about how difficult it can be to tell these emotions apart on the basis of facial expressions and gestures, about how the person in question may struggle to distinguish these feelings in themselves”
― han kang, We Do Not Part

“How does one endure it?
Without a fire raging in one's chest,
Without a you to return to and embrace.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“Dreams are terrifying things. No—they’re humiliating. They reveal things about you that you weren’t even aware of.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“Snow falls. On my forehead and cheeks. On my upper lip, the groove above it. It is not cold. It is only as heavy as feathers, as the finest tip of a paintbrush. Has my skin frozen over? Is my face covered in snow as it would be if I were dead? But my eyelids must not have grown cold. Only the snowflakes clinging to them are. They melt into cold droplets of water and seep into my eyes.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“The single flake that settled and melted over my glove just now was as close to a pristine six-armed snow crystal as one is likely to find. The one that settles next to it is partly crumbled, but the remaining four branches retain their delicate shape. These soft, deteriorating dendrites are the first to melt away. The tiny white center, the part that resembles a grain of salt, lingers for a breath before dissolving.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“I remember the images of snow crystals that accompanied these explanations. The book was bound with thin interleaving sheets of glassine to protect the color plates. I had turned the translucent paper to find a page filled with variously shaped snow crystals. Their intricacy overwhelmed me. Some of the crystals had smooth hexagonal columns instead of symmetrical plates, and the tiny captions beneath explained that, on the boundary of snow and rain, snowflakes took these elongated forms. For weeks and months afterward, I had pictured those delicate, silvery columns whenever I saw sleet. On days of heavy snowfall, I used to extend my coat sleeve to watch the flakes settle on the fluff on its dark fabric and dissolve. It made me dizzy to consider the innumerable combinations of coruscating hexagonal crystals like the ones I’d seen in the book that made up each grain of snow. For days after, I had woken from sleep and, while my eyes remained closed, imagined it was still snowing outside. I had seen snow drift down around me indoors while I lay sprawled on the floor, working on some tedious holiday assignment. Flakes landing on my hand, from which I’d just removed a hangnail. Flakes landing on the loose hairs and eraser dust strewn across the floor.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“The subtropical trees, weighed down with huge crimson blossoms, are swaying fiercely. The only reason not a dusting of snow has settled on the flowers in this strong storm is because of the overpowering wind. The movement of the palm trees, fronds swinging like so many long arms, seems even more violent. The glossy leaves, the flower stalks, the laden branches on every tree are flailing wildly, each like a separate entity trying to rid itself of the heavy snow.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“—Mi madre se detuvo en aquel lugar y se quedó con la vista fija en la otra orilla. El arroyo había crecido tanto que sus aguas rugían ensordecedoras como una cascada. Me acuerdo de que llegué junto a ella, preguntándome si era necesario quedarse así de quieta para ver correr el agua. Mi madre se sentó en cuclillas y yo la imité. Entonces se giró hacia mí sonriendo y me acarició la mejilla. Luego me pasó la mano por la cabeza, por el hombro, por la espalda. Sentí su amor como un dolor sordo que me traspasaba la piel, se hundía hasta la médula de los huesos y me encogía el corazón...
Fue entonces cuando supe lo mucho que duele amar a alguien.”
― Han Kang, Imposible decir adiós

“A veces no resulta fácil diferenciar la paciencia de la resignación, la tristeza de la reconciliación incompleta, la fortaleza de la soledad. Son sentimientos difíciles de discernir en los rostros y gestos de algunas personas, y quizá ni ellas mismas puedan distinguirlos con exactitud.”
― Han Kang, Imposible decir adiós

“Jamás mencionó de qué manera aquellas dos muchachas enterraron los cuerpos de sus padres y hermanos, ni con qué tesón o buena fortuna lograron sobrevivir solas después. Solo me habló de la nieve. De la nieve en las caras de aquellos cadáveres del pasado y de la nieve en su sueño reciente, como si la relación de causalidad que relacionaba a esas nieves que no se derretían fuera la terrible lógica que recorría toda su vida.”
― Han Kang, Imposible decir adiós

“There are people who actively change the course of their own life. They make daring choices that others seldom dream of, then do their utmost to be accountable for their actions and the consequences of those actions.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“In retrospect it baffles me. Having decided to write about mass killings and torture, how could I have so naively—brazenly—hoped to soon shirk off the agony of it, to so easily be bereft of its traces?”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“I'm leaving you so I can breathe.
I want to live, not be half-dead.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“I remember the feeling of aching love, how it seeped into my skin. Clogging the marrow in my bones and shrivelling my heart... that was when I realized. That love was a terrible agony.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“In lieu of an answer, I placed my hand over the photo of the bones.
Over people who no longer had eyes or tongues.
Over people whose organs and muscles had rotted away.
Over what was no longer human - no.
Over what remained human even now.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“A thought comes to me. Doesn't water circulate endlessly and never disappear? If that's true, then the snowflakes Inseon grew up seeing could be the same ones falling on my face at this moment. I am reminded of the Inseon's mother described, the ones in the schoolyard,[...] Who's to say the snow dusting my hands now isn't the same snow that had gathered on their faces.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“I don't know if this is what happens right before you die. Everything I have ever experienced is made crystalline. Nothing hurts any more. Hundreds upon thousands of moments glitter in unison, like snowflakes whose elaborate shapes are in full view. How is this possible, I can't say. My every pain and joy, all my deep-rooted sorrows and loves, shine, not as an amalgam but as a whole comprised of distinct singularities, glowing together as one giant nebula.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“Han Kang was born in 1970 in South Korea. She is the author of The Vegetarian, winner of the International Booker Prize, as well as Human Acts, The White Book, and Greek Lessons. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“The governing U.S. military ordered that everyone on the island, all roughly three hundred thousand people, be wiped out if that’s what it took to stop their communization, and members of the Seocheong, the extreme-right Northwest Youth League, who were from the north and locked and loaded with willingness and resentment, entered the island dressed in police and army uniforms after two weeks of training. Then the coastal blockade and media blackout followed. The murderous impulse to point a gun at an infant’s head was not only allowed but rewarded—to the extent that children under the age of ten who were killed in this way numbered one and a half thousand—and shortly after this war broke out, and following the precedent here, if one can call it that when the blood has barely dried, they culled around two hundred thousand people from cities and villages throughout the country, transported them in trucks, incarcerated them, shot them, buried them in mass graves—and then prohibited any and all from claiming and collecting the remains.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“After surviving that hell, would he still have been the kind of person who made choices we could understand?”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“Inseon asked, What are we calling it? Our project. She turned to me, smiling as she poured bottled water into the kettle. I realized I’d never asked, she said. We Do Not Part, I answered.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“The woods shudder and cry out. Snow topples from trees in great flurries. My forehead feels like it’s about to shatter. I lean against the window and recall the storm I saw earlier on the coastal road. Cloud banks dispersing in the far horizon as snow sweeps over the water’s surface like huge flocks of birds. The grey sea bearing down on the island as if to swallow it whole, its large waves breaking into whitecaps.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“Once she had a rough cut, Inseon invited a few close acquaintances to a pre-release screening. In this version the rainstorm scene followed shots of the woman’s daily life, the woman who had looked at the camera and answered, All right. I’ll tell you. We saw her walk to the yard to wash her kettle at the water pump. She pumped the handle a few times to get the water flowing, then rinsed the kettle inside and out. On the fourth rinse, we heard her low voice say as subtitles appeared on screen, That night the soldiers came. Before her account was over, the long-take scene of falling rain began. The grass-thatched roofs were drenched. The brass water pump gleamed as it deflected the pelting raindrops. The overgrown hedge of wild jasmine shook. The chicken coop was awash with muddy water and flapping wings. Women appeared in dripping, rolled-up cotton trousers, bamboo baskets over their heads. The yard, choppy with rainwater. The round heads of chicks, wobbling like wet balls of wool.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“The sea that runs alongside the one-hour stretch of coastal road had churned and frothed as if to engulf the island, the waves advancing from all sides, crests white with spume, to crash into the jetty and erupt into air.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“As Inseon set a plate of kimchi on the table, I noticed that she looked more at peace than she had in Seoul. It can be difficult to distinguish forbearance from resignation, sorrow from partial reconciliation, fortitude from loneliness. I thought about how difficult it can be to tell these emotions apart on the basis of facial expressions and gestures, about how the person in question may struggle to distinguish these feelings in themselves.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“I think about how the majority of her films feature women of a certain age, women who are often addressed as halmoni. I always assumed Inseon’s outgoing nature would have played a large part in generating the extraordinary intimacy of her interviews. That as the women paused in their remarks or trailed off into silence when their eyes fell on the camera, Inseon would have sat across from them, her face open and sincere, and tried her best to meet their gaze. It was this off-screen face of hers I pictured while watching her documentary on Việt Nam, specifically the scene where the local guide is translating Inseon’s questions to the woman who lives alone in a remote jungle village. She is asking if you have a story you want to tell her about that night. Above the somewhat stiffly translated subtitles, the woman looks past the camera. Her short white hair is tucked behind her ears, her face small and gaunt, and her eyes are unusually sharp. This person came here from Korea to ask you this. Finally, the woman speaks. All right. I’ll tell you. She stares steadily at the camera with remarkable focus, not once glancing at the interpreter. The gleam in her eyes pierced the lens and—I imagined—Inseon’s eyes, lancing directly into my own. This was the reply of someone who had waited a very long time for this moment. This brief consent, I realized, held the entire weight of her life.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“and the shutters on the shopfronts closing in the distance were all resoundingly clear in the stillness. White steam poured from our mouths and noses. Snowflakes landed on the bridges of our noses and our lips. They were quick to melt on our warm faces, and new, startlingly cold crystals settled over their wet traces. Neither of us seemed to be thinking about the separate paths we would have to take to get home. As we kept walking away from the subway station like lovers who choose a roundabout route to delay their brief goodbyes, as we traversed the hushed pedestrian crossings that appeared around every corner like yet another page in that book, I waited. For Inseon to break the silence and continue her story.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part

“The snow is falling in such a way that it doesn’t accumulate much on the coast, but at a slightly higher altitude the situation will be different. Up in those hills and woods and pastures, there will be nothing so merciful as the sunlight that falls like a miracle when the clouds momentarily disperse, nor any of the glittering snowflakes that flurry over the surface of the sea like low-flying birds. Once we reach Pâ€�, we will have no choice but to enter into the heart of that whiteout, in all its stifling density.”
― Han Kang, We Do Not Part