Adam Johnson

[I]n communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#capitalism #communism #economics #north-korea #obedience

Use your imagination only on the future, never on the present or the past. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#imagination

Orphans are the only ones who get to choose their fathers, and they love them twice as much. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#love

The urge to create a fictional narrative is a mysterious one, and when an idea comes, the writer's sense of what a story wants to be is only vaguely visible through the penumbra of inspiration. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#inspiration #write #writer #inspirational

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 in Pyongyang ↗

— Adam Johnson

#propaganda

The death of dictator Kim Jong-Il has cast all eyes on North Korea, a country without literature or freedom or truth. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#country #death #dictator #eyes #freedom

It's true. In America, you can reinvent yourself at any turn. And, you know, if things aren't going well for you in life, everyone says, change, become someone different. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#any #become #change #different #everyone

Imagine a world in which no writer has written a literary novel in sixty years. Imagine a place where not a single person has read a book that is truly about the character at its center. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#book #center #character #imagine #literary

I thought that, with so much current attention focused on the topic of North Korea, I might share what I think are three books which cast a rare light on the elusive realm of North Korea. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#books #cast #current #elusive #focused

I know it really sounds cheesy, but I did feel a duty to try to tell the stories of people who couldn't speak for themselves. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#did #duty #feel #i #know