“In a gesture of socialist support, the Dear Leader placed his hand upon her.” — Adam Johnson Gesture Copy Share Image
“Graffiti, citizens, is the name for the way capitalists deface their public buildings.” — Adam Johnson Capitalism Copy Share Image
Use your imagination only on the future, never on the present or the past. — Adam Johnson Future Copy Share Image
Today, tomorrow," she said. "A day is nothing. A day is just a match you strike after the ten thousand matches before… — Adam Johnson Gone Copy Share Image
I know it really sounds cheesy, but I did feel a duty to try to tell the stories of people who couldn't… — Adam Johnson Cheesy Copy Share Image
“To survive in this world, you got to be many times a coward but at least once a hero” — Adam Johnson Coward Copy Share Image
Orphans are the only ones who get to choose their fathers, and they love them twice as much. — Adam Johnson Father Copy Share Image
“Aren’t our lives a collision of the comic and the uncertain and the terrifying and the mundane?” — Adam Johnson Uncertain Copy Share Image
“When the dogs returned, the Senator gave them treats from his pocket, and Jun Do understood that in communism, you'd threaten a… — Adam Johnson Capitalism Copy Share Image
“The urge to create a fictional narrative is a mysterious one, and when an idea comes, the writer's sense of what a… — adam johnson Creativity Copy Share Image
“Jun Do remembered that he had no one that mattered to him, which was why his tattoo would be of an actress… — Adam Johnson Tattoo Copy Share Image
A name isn't a person,' Ga said. 'Don't ever remember someone by their name. To keep someone alive, you put them inside… — Adam Johnson Alive Copy Share Image
“There is a talk that every father has with his son in which he brings the child to understand that there are… — Adam Johnson Children Copy Share Image
“He had been the person who took. He’d been the one who was taken. And he’d been the one left behind. Next… — Adam Johnson Left behind Copy Share Image
Imagine a world in which no writer has written a literary novel in sixty years. Imagine a place where not a single… — Adam Johnson About Copy Share Image
“Do you feel for the man hungry enough to steal?" Commander Ga asked as they drove by. "Or for the men who… — Adam Johnson Hungry Copy Share Image
“His mind and his flesh had separated, his brain had sat high and frightened above the mule of his body, a beast… — Adam Johnson Psychology Copy Share Image
“And then he closed his eyes and imagined Sun Moon, the one that was always within him...she was a calm presence, open-armed,… — Adam Johnson Sun moon Copy Share Image
But, in North Korea, it's just the opposite. There's one story. It's written by the Kim regime. And 23 million people are… — Adam Johnson Aptitude Copy Share Image
In America, the stories we tell ourselves and we tell each other in fiction have to do with individualism. Every person here… — Adam Johnson America Copy Share Image
Sometimes in life, things happen that will knock you back. Hell, you may get beaten to your knees but you must never… — Adam Johnson Adversity Copy Share Image
“Where we are from, he said, stories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had… — Adam Johnson Music Copy Share Image
“She was a believer, you know," the Captain said. "My wife. She thought socialism was the only thing that would make us… — Adam Johnson Marriage Copy Share Image
“Being in an M.F.A. is like living in a sci-fi biosphere on an alien planet, where everyone shares your obscure visionary notions:… — Adam Johnson Friday night Copy Share Image
“Certainly a rope and pulley would have worked best. But not everybody around here went to Kim Il Sung University.” — Adam Johnson Education Copy Share Image
“which was impossible. How could a signal come from everywhere? Just like that, the broadcast seemed to” — Adam Johnson Broadcast Copy Share Image
The next day, she was silent. For breakfast, she murdered an onion and served it raw. — Adam Johnson Breakfast Copy Share Image
In my experience, ghosts are made up only of the living, people you know are out there but are forever out of… — Adam Johnson Forever Copy Share Image
The death of dictator Kim Jong-Il has cast all eyes on North Korea, a country without literature or freedom or truth. — Adam Johnson Books Copy Share Image
“Ga thought of how difficult it was to come to see the lies you told yourself, the ones that allowed you to… — Adam Johnson Lies Copy Share Image
“Ga thought about reminding the Dear Leader that they lived in a land where people had been trained to accept any reality… — Adam Johnson Leadership Copy Share Image
“sometimes the boys from Propaganda will nose around for a feel-good story to play to the citizens over the loudspeakers, but we’re… — Adam Johnson Propaganda Copy Share Image
“Was it this image of the woman she once was that made her fingers tremble? Or did she feel for this man… — Adam Johnson Weeping Copy Share Image
“It wasn’t that I didn’t know anyone’s phone number—I didn’t—it was that only at this moment did I realize I had no… — Adam Johnson Friendship Copy Share Image
“But I held her in my heart, and would stay with her all my days, even if a great many of them… — Adam Johnson Great man Copy Share Image
“And what was wrong with my memory? How come I didn’t recollect how I spent these painful days, and why was I… — Adam Johnson Forgetting Copy Share Image
“That’s how he’d thought of most people— appearing in your life like foundlings on the doorstep, only to be swept away later… — Adam Johnson Flood Copy Share Image
“Are there labor camps here?" he asked. "No," she said. "Mandatory marriages, forced-criticism sessions, loudspeaker?" She shook her head. "Then I'm not… — Adam Johnson Heart Copy Share Image
“Stories are factual...If a man and his story are in conflict it is the man who must change…In America it is the… — Adam Johnson Story Copy Share Image
“Inside, I’m assaulted by the evening propaganda broadcasts coming over the apartment’s hardwired loudspeaker. There’s one in every apartment and factory floor… — Adam Johnson North korea Copy Share Image
