[A Sip of Books] Insights on Life, Happiness, and Love... Preferably in Short Writings

Editor's NoteSome sentences encapsulate the entire content of a book, while others instantly resonate with the reader, creating a connection with the book. We introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from books.

"When the meaning is the same, a shorter sentence is a better sentence." This is a collection of 'Danjang (斷章)'?prose pieces written in fragments. Danjang is a literary genre gaining attention in Europe, such as France, but is rarely found domestically. This can be considered the first domestic collection of danjang. It deeply reflects on everyday themes such as life, happiness, suffering, time, love, art, and life and death.

A person's face is a mask. When a person puts a mask on their face, that mask appears to be their true face. - p.19

The turning of the year is a moment to listen carefully to the flow of time that we usually forget. - p.27

Life is waiting. Just as a fisherman's wife waits for her husband who went out to sea and does not return, people live their lives in endless waiting. - p.36

When I pulled out the weeds caught between the paving blocks, I found that pulling with the left hand was much easier than with the right hand because it required less force. Yet people try to live skillfully like their right hand. Live clumsily like your left hand. - p.48

When a woman who had a one-sided love visits the grave of a man who died from lovesickness and confesses, "I loved you too," this is the pinnacle of love. - p.61

Heroes are nurtured by solitude. Genghis Khan had no friends following him except his own shadow when he was young, and Napoleon was reading a book alone in a corner of the playground during his childhood. - p.97

Just as people cannot endure freedom or peace for long, they also cannot endure a state without pain or worries for long. So they keep creating new pains and worries for themselves. - p.107

People with shallow thoughts do not realize that their thoughts are shallow. - p.121

A poet is someone who scoops water with a net. In the nets of non-poets, all the water drains out, and only water droplets remain caught. - p.171

When you brush past a stranger who is a beautiful woman on the street, you can hear the sound of the wind passing through a thousand years. Because she is someone you will never meet again. - p.207

When I came out into the world, what was the most beautiful thing to me? Was it a single mimosa flower, a painting by Chaban, a verse by Verlaine, a song by Schubert, or a beauty? While giving a special lecture to island students at a middle school in my hometown, I said, "The most beautiful thing in the world is the horizon." - p.320

Beyond the Horizon | Written by Kim Seong-woo | Gipeunsam | 324 pages | 19,800 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.