“Forty percent?” Dr. Song exclaimed. “Voter turnout in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is ninety-nine percent—the most democratic nation in the world! Still, the United States needn’t feel shame. Your country can still be a beacon for countries with lower turnouts, like Burundi, Paraguay, and Chechnya.”

“Where we are from,” he said, “stories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he’d be wise to start practicing the piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change.”

papered. There was no laundry hanging

The key to fighting in the dark was no different: you had to perceive your opponent, sense him, and never use your imagination.

then Jun Do remembered that he had no one that mattered to him, which was why his tattoo would be of an actress he’d never seen, taken from a calendar at the helm of a fishing boat.

if there’s one commodity we have no shortage of in North Korea, it’s 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.”

a hundred boys bunked four tiers deep, all their common exhaustion articulated as a singularity. It was nothing short of belonging, a feeling that wasn’t particularly profound or intense, it was just the best he tended to get. He’d spent most of his life since trying to be alone, but there were moments aboard the Junma where he felt a part, and

‘Brando’ is the word that Texans use to say something is yours forever.”