“Some sentences stick with you forever the moment you read them.”

The precious things of life lost in the hardships of everyday life
Life lessons discovered in the most elegant language

Nietzsche said that life is surprisingly bearable if you have just one person or something that understands your heart.
From the moment I wake up until I go to bed, I'm torn between what I want to do and what I have to do to earn a living, and I'm so caught up in relationships that I often forget what supports me in life.
Fortunately, we have a record called literature.
Nietzsche, Park Wan-seo, Hesse, Kim So-wol, Yang Gui-ja, … .
Those who left behind works we love lived in a different era, but their concerns were no different from ours today.
In the midst of their difficult lives, they expressed their wounds and pain through writing, expressing hope and the brilliance of life.
Through the language of 'literature', which writers have created by finding the light of life even in dark, small rooms where no light shines, we find comfort in the fact that 'I am not the only one who is suffering', 'we all experience pain', and 'there is no one who lives unshaken', and we gain the strength to recover from our wounds without sacrificing ourselves.
If it weren't for the words of great writers, where would we find solace and endure this difficult life?
The books contained in this volume, the thoughts contained in those books, and the lives of the authors who could not help but think of such thoughts will bring a small thrill to the weary hearts that must live tomorrow.

In a small, dark room where the light of the world cannot reach, someone is expressing, without a single false whisper, the cries of despair that I am witnessing and the human passions that bloom from it.
That is literature, and when we keep literature by our side, we gain the strength to recover from wounds without sacrificing ourselves.
Even if you don't become a victor in the struggle against the world, you can still seize a new stage beyond the great barrier.
Because all humans have the ability to empathize and be moved.
I just found out.
It is not only human nature to fall into hurt, be robbed, and be frustrated.
When you fall, you open your eyes to a space you couldn't see, when you lose something, you realize what was truly precious, and frustration becomes knowledge that allows you to properly judge the signposts of a path you shouldn't take.
--- From "Introductory Remarks - A Consolation Called Literature, Deeper and More Splendid"

“You walk the great path prepared for you.
The greatest adventure that once held you captive has now become your last refuge.
There is no road behind you.
“Now the only answer you can choose is to walk forward.”
Life is a huge gem.
Whether one carves a god or a devil into this stone is entirely up to the individual's freedom and choice.
Nietzsche defined human life as a struggle toward uniformity.
In a world that does not recognize differences between us, the path that humans must take is clear and simple.
We must break away from the universal path that humanity walks.
It is scary to be classified as a loser because of that, but to tell the truth, being left behind is a prejudice that arises from differences in position and perspective.
Nietzsche's life and death are proof of this.
--- "Tomorrow may be worse than today - Friedrich Nietzsche, from 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'"

“I had a feeling that I would write about it someday in the future.
That premonition drove out the fear.
“I wasn’t worried about the little food we had.”
No matter how much the world hurt, oppressed, and ignored her, Park Wan-seo never gave up writing novels.
Because before novels became a liberating force that allowed her to realize herself or something that brought her fame, they were a job that generated income.
Park Wan-seo could not tolerate insults to her profession as a novelist more than the human insults that mentioned the limitations of women.
She respected and loved her job.
By becoming a novelist, she finally achieved independence as a human being, not as a woman, and succeeded in establishing a foundation for self-esteem.
--- "At the crossroads of mothers, women, and members of society - from Park Wan-seo, "Who Ate All Those Singa?"

“Like a blind man, I now grope and lock the door.
“My poor love is trapped in an empty house.”
There is something I remember from the articles written by Kihyungdo during his lifetime.
'This is our land.
The land is the hope of the soil.
We cannot leave life. In a world where life is becoming as empty as an empty house, what will we rely on to survive this futile cycle?
I am skeptical because it seems like Gihyeongdo's life is telling me that the right answer is just the right answer, not the absolute truth.
Young Gihyeongdo loved his mother who went out to the radish field to dig holes even under the scorching summer sun.
I remembered the empty house my mother would return to.
And then he left us like an empty house.
As we read his poem, “Empty House,” we realize that life is not something we bring but something we leave behind, that it is not a process of filling but a process of emptying, and that is why we feel sad and empty more often than we feel happy.
--- "Comfort for those who cannot leave the empty house called work - Ki Hyeong-do, "Empty House"

“It was love that brought the two back to life.
“In each other’s hearts, there was a constant spring of love for the other’s heart.”
To do what you want from someone you love first for them is something that can never be done with words or a look.
It is only realized when the one who loves becomes the one who is loved.
And when the language of loving you is derived from that being, it becomes true love and binds two people together forever.
--- "Love is love, and people are saved as people - Fyodor Dostoevsky, from 'Crime and Punishment'"

“I know very well why Albert Camus’s voice pierces the lungs.
There are no secrets or hints to him.
He doesn't speak in a muffled voice, not even in a gentle voice.
He says directly what he needs to say.”
Camus and Grenier were unable to understand each other's world or find a compromise until the very end.
However, I did not let go of the thread of empathy that it could be the other person's position.
The driving force behind the long-term, uninterrupted relationship between two completely different people as literary companions was that Camus and Grenier's "differences" were not a means of division, but rather a secret key to delving deeper into their respective lives and philosophies.
To them, their differences were not differences, but a third alternative, a new horizon that could not be seen without going through each other.
Camus could exist because of Grenier.
Because of Camus, I was able to exist as Grenier.
--- "Humans mirror each other - Jean Grenier, from "Remembering Camus"

“Even though we miss each other, we meet once and then never meet again, and even though we can’t forget each other for the rest of our lives, we live without meeting each other.
Asako and I met three times.
“It would have been better if we hadn’t met the third time.”
The clear language contained in a single piece of writing, the small but sincere days that Picheon Deuk secretly kept for nearly 100 years until that language was created.
It means making other people's hearts ache and replacing lost relationships...
I believe that we, who still seek out his writings today, are the greatest connection that Picheon Deuk hoped for during his lifetime, and that each day, though not special, is filled with more of 'me' because of it.
--- "Our relationship preserved with sincerity - from Picheon Deuk's "Relationship"

“Getting older is a wonderful experience.
Even if you go to a dangerous place, you are free and at peace because you are at an age where you will die anyway.
It is a free state, free from all shackles.
It's time to embark on the adventure you've been saving up for.
In that sense, I believe that the adventure of life is a privilege reserved for old age, not for youth or middle age.”
"The Wisdom of Aging" is a book written by Ayako Sono, who is nearing eighty, to reflect on the meaning of life she has regained along with her eyesight.
The wisdom of life that Sono Ayako discovered was generosity and self-reliance.
For her, who miraculously regained her sight and started a new life at an age when others would be preparing to retire, fifty was just a number to count the seasons of her life.
Undeterred by the numbers, she reached out to anyone trapped in the darkness, holding the light she had been given.
That is why the fresh scent of life always vibrates in Sono Ayako's old life.

--- "Realizing how to live with the power of the mind - Sono Ayako, from "The Wisdom of Aging"