Seonghwan Hwang Quotes

Interlaken

Get a running start. Catch
a good wind, he said: Be a good

bird. I thought him German
as his hand did the wave––tumult

of syllables, the ocean. A gust carried us
from the top of a ridge to where land

helixes hug vague bodies
of water, pebbled pastures

skimming treelines across the range
littered with wildflowers. Winds lilted:

It's not your day to go, as I watched
clouds blush vermillion, flying

in tandem as a crow does over
reservoirs and glacial gorges. That high

up, I thought maybe we could fall
in love, full of pomp and spectacle,

but he was a stranger, and to him, I was
strange; possibly ugly. Everyone

peddles timing––the random alchemy
of abutting molecules––though

I've grown weary of waiting. Stillness
is the danger. So I spread out

my arms, carved ciphers into ether
while a choir could be heard along

the nave where winding trails scissor
the basin. Spiraling downward,

I mouthed a new prayer, knelt in air
for deliverance, morphing into needle

of a compass, unbeholden to a place
inhospitable: the mind. The mind bent

on forgetting: I was blown wide open. ~ Su Hwang

This is a world in which those living on the edges of society, at the very bottom of the social scale, are being brought to the limits of what they can endure. When they reach this point, their shadows rise up, startling sudden, and start calling them away from their lives. It is a world in which, however they choose to deal with these shadows,which seem to offer death an invitation, they find themselves only just barely able to go on with the business of living. ~ Hwang Jungeun

They are like the handful of belongings saved from a burnt-down house. There should be a continuous challenge to authority for change and reform, and groups of ordinary people should form an alliance to reclaim what was taken by the state inch by inch, like a children's game, and enlarge the territory to the level of practical equality. ~ Hwang Sok-yong

My first plays were amazingly bad, but I had a teacher who thought I had promise, and he kept working with me. I finally went to a summer workshop before my senior year with people like Sam Shepard and Maria Irene Fornes who encouraged me to write from my subconscious, and suddenly all this material about culture clash came out. ~ David Henry Hwang

You aren't allowed to ask at auditions, legally, a person's race. ~ David Henry Hwang

I can't say a thing. What is there to say? I have given birth to a son! What more can I possibly hope for? I hear his footsteps crossing the front yard and gradually fading away, off into the distance. As the silence grows, I suddenly realize that hes gone. He's gone to someplace far away, and he's never coming back.(2007: 153) ~ Hwang Sok-yong

Well, there's no guarantee of failure in life like happiness in high school. ~ David Henry Hwang

For the myths of the East, the myths of the West, the myths of men, and the myths of women - these have so saturated our consciousness that truthful contact between nations and lovers can only be the result of heroic effort. ~ David Henry Hwang

But mistakes don't define us, they refine us. ~ Victor W. Hwang

I've studied Chinese in college, but basically, I'm not bilingual. ~ David Henry Hwang

We are all prisoners of our time and place. ~ David Henry Hwang

And you wonder, what's wrong with me? Will anyone beautiful want me? ~ David Henry Hwang

It just hangs there. This little... flap of flesh. And there's so much fuss that we make about it. I think the reason we fight wars is because we wear clothes. Because no one knows–between the men, I mean–who has the bigger... weenie. So. if I'm a guy with a small one, I'm going to build a really big building or take over a really big piece of land or write a really long book so the other men don't know, right? But see, it never really works, that's the problem. I mean, you conquer the country, or whatever, but you're still wearing clothes, so there's no way to prove absolutely whose is bigger or smaller. And that's what we call a civilized society. The whole world run by a bunch of men with pricks the size of pins. ~ David Henry Hwang

I knew I was Chinese, but growing up, it never occurred to me that that had any particular implication or that it should differentiate me in any way. I thought it was a minor detail, like having red hair. ~ David Henry Hwang

The blazing sun beat down on the concrete of the museum's front yard- Reverend Ryu Yosop felt as if the heat were sucking up all the moisture in his brain and heart. What different colors he and his brother Yohan must have used as each of them painted their own picture of home, of the carnage. These people have constructed yet a different vision of their own, Yosop thought to himself, but it all stems from the same nightmare, the one we created together. ~ Hwang Sok-yong

Time flies when you're being stupid. ~ David Henry Hwang

The scene [Bruegel's 'Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'] is filled with a vast field, and a cow and a farmer plowing. In the left-hand corner is a tiny ocean the size of a palm, and there, I can barely make it out, the two legs of a man who fell headlong into the sea. This is called the Fall of Icarus. Compared to everyday life, the fall of an idealist who flew too high with candle-wax wings is an unremarkable tragedy. ~ Hwang Sok-yong

Even if you're lucky to have a play on Broadway like 'Chinglish,' you don't necessarily earn enough off it to support the years it takes to get there. ~ David Henry Hwang

Women are walking around on the streets. From her calf and the hem of her skirt to her hip, from her hair to the high heels on her feet, a young woman is freedom. Especially when you look at her from afar. ~ Hwang Sok-yong

To me to write well is to battle stereotypes. To write well is to create three-dimensional characters that seem human. ~ David Henry Hwang

The West believes the East, deep down, wants to be dominated, because a woman can't think for herself ~ David Henry Hwang

Happiness is so rare that our mind can turn somersaults to protect it. ~ David Henry Hwang

As much as you want to do it and as much as you put into it, that's exactly how much it comes back to you. ~ Tiffany Hwang

But is it possible for a woman to be too uninhibited, too willing, so as to seem almost too... masculine? ~ David Henry Hwang

It suddenly occurred to me that the whole notion of this side, of us and them - it was all over. It was no longer the Lord's Crusade. We were no longer fighting to overthrow Satan. We have been tested, I thought to myself, and we have been found wanting. Our faith was corrupted. My comrades and I - we'd become the endless days, days without light. What does that mean, you ask? We were sick and tired of living. At the least provocation, we would spit out, Fuck it, and kill whoever happened to be involved. (2007: 222) ~ Hwang Sok-yong

Regretting my past keeps me from moving on ~ Hyun-Jung Hwang

Why, in the Peking Opera, are women's roles played by men? ... Because only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act. ~ David Henry Hwang

There's something about China and its rush to capitalism that I find confusing. At the same time, we live in an America where capitalists oppose any government interference with free markets, while in China you have a very controlled, state-planned market where economic growth is better than ours. ~ David Henry Hwang

I now know that to do a worthwhile family history I must interpret the past without falling into either demonizing or unquestioning acceptance ... As a playwright, what I object to right now is any form of fundamentalism, whether it's nationalistic, religious or ethnic ... I think it is ridiculous - and fundamentalist, by the way - to say that I am not changed by the culture around me. ~ David Henry Hwang

The people your brother killed - well, they all had souls. They weren't Satan. Ryu Yohan wasn't Satan, either. His faith was twisted, that's all. I know now. I know that God is innocent. (2007: 143) ~ Hwang Sok-yong

Sometimes changing ourselves, changes the world ~ Jae Won Hwang

When you've fallen in a pit, the thing that you need most in order to escape is not a ladder. What you need is an intense longing for the world outside the pit. What is it that you long for outside the pit? ~ Hwang Youngchan

I am almost famous in China, because I have that Broadway cachet. ~ David Henry Hwang

Peter is still amazed at the degree to which a certain widening gyre of accolades can change an artist's work, literally change it, not just the new stuff but the old as well, the pieces that have been around for a while, that have seemed "interesting" or "promising" but minor, until (not often, just once in a while) an artist is by some obscure consensus declared to have been neglected, misrepresented, ahead of his time. What's astonishing to Peter is the way the work itself seems to change, more or less in the way of a reasonably pretty girl who is suddenly treated as a beauty. Peculiar, clever Victoria Hwang is going to be in Artforum next month, and probably in the collections of the Whitney and the Guggenheim; Renee Zellweger - moonfaced, squinty-eyed, a character actress if ever there was one - was just on the cover of Vogue, looking ravishing in a silver gown. It is, of course, a trick of perception - the understanding that that funny little artist or that quirky-looking girl must be taken with new seriousness - but Peter suspects there's a deeper change at work. Being the focus of that much attention (and, yes, of that much money) seems to differently excite the molecules of the art or the actress or the politician. It's not just a phenomenon of altered expectations, it's a genuine transubstantiation, brought about by altered expectations. Renée Zellweger becomes a beauty, and would look like a beauty to someone who had never heard of her. Victoria Hwang's videos and ~ Michael Cunningham

There is an old saying that goes 'Start by plucking a hair, end by killing a man'. It is also said, 'Two hands must meet to make a sound'. The atrocities that happened here weren't carried out by strangers - it was us, the people who'd once lived together harmoniously in the same village."
"They say it was the superstitious freaks who did it."
"No, it was Satan who did it."
"Come now, what sort of a ghost is that?"
Ryu Yosop replied, "It is the black thing that lives in the heart of every man. ~ Hwang Sok-yong

I suppose the time is ripe for them now, for the people who were there. They're ready now, I think. So ... they appear before us as part of their redemption."
"But you and I, we weren't to blame, were we?"
Suddenly slamming his thick palm down on the table, Uncle Some shouted, "Show me one soul who wasn't to blame!" (2007: 162) ~ Hwang Sok-yong

My father has always been interested in discarding the past. He's never much liked China or the whole idea behind China or Chinese ways of thinking. He's always been much more attracted to American ways of thinking. He feels Americans are more open - they tell you what they think - and he's very much that way himself. ~ David Henry Hwang

I felt pretty good growing up. I didn't feel a lot of prejudice or racism. But I do remember, if there was going to be a movie or a television show with Asian characters, I would go out of my way to avoid them, because they portrayed all Asians as either ridiculously good or ridiculously bad; you know, the whole Charlie Chan-Fu Manchu thing. ~ David Henry Hwang

There was all this talk when Obama got elected about how we were living in a postracial world. But we're not. Until we get to the point where James Earl Jones can play, say, George Washington, race matters. You wouldn't put a white actor in blackface to play Othello. You shouldn't have a white actor in what amounts to yellowface to play Asian. ~ David Henry Hwang

They were happy to help someone, to succeed at something, even if they weren't to benefit. We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realised that if we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer. ~ Hwang Sok-yong

Chinese culture in general is not very religious. Confucianism is more a code of ethics than a religion, and ancestor worship is a way for parents to control you even after they're dead. ~ David Henry Hwang

One naive pro-natalist assumption is that because death is a bad thing, procreation, which can be considered the antonym of death is a god thing, but the naive defect in that assumption is that it ignores the obvious fact that procreation is an essential (and the ultimate cause) of death ~ Jiwoon Hwang

Hwang Jung-eun is one of the brightest stars of the new South Korean generation - she's Han Kang's favourite, and the novel we're publishing scooped the prestigious Bookseller's Award, for critically-acclaimed fiction that also has a wide popular appeal. She stands out for her focus on social minorities - her protagonists are slum inhabitants, trans women, orphans - and for the way she melds this hard-edged social critique with obliquely fantastical elements and offbeat dialogue. ~ Deborah Smith

You can't be a playwright without believing there's an audience for adventurous work. ~ David Henry Hwang

Yes, I am one of those people who feels that most of my work is adaptation of one sort or another. For me, it's a way to jump-start the engine. For example, some people use the technique of basing a character on a friend. They start writing with his or her voice, then at a certain point, the character takes off on his or her own. It probably no longer resembles the model, but it helped the author to get going. I find that's true of form, too. For every play I've written, I know what play I was trying to imitate. That helps me get going. ~ David Henry Hwang

As it turns out, the atrocities we suffered were committed by none other than ourselves, and the inner sense of guilt and fear sparked by this incident helped form the roots of the frantic hatred that thrives to this day. (2007: 9) ~ Hwang Sok-yong

Originally the structure was ... a modern narrator who would appear intermittently and talk about his memories of his grandmother, which would then be juxtaposed against scenes from the past. But the stories from the past were always more interesting that the things in the present. I find this almost endemic to modern plays that veer between past and present ... So as we've gone on developing GOLDEN CHILD, the scenes from the past have become more dominant, and all that remains of the present are these two little bookends that frame the action. ~ David Henry Hwang