"I have to be honest and and say that i don't particularly like South Korean literature and I don't particularly like Korean prose, long- long form Korean prose fiction. ... I mean, when I approach a novel I expect to be brought into contact with somebody special in some way and I find that Koreans tend to enjoy fictional and cinematic depictions of normal everyday group life. They want to see a mirror and they will sit back and nod at that and I just have to say it doesn't do very much for me."

"The language is peculiar to the country, and while written official documents are done in the common character of China and Japan, the spoken language of neither of these people is understood in Korea. The native language of Korea possesses an alphabet and grammar, and is polysyllabic, thus resembling English more than it does Chinese."

"Koreans are wonderfully tolerant of a foreigner with differing views when the discussion is in Korean, and no foreigners of importance are around. They lose their tempers when they see someone exporting information which — however widely discussed in the Korean press — is thought best kept "in country.""

"Korean sounds like ack-ack fire, every syllable has a primary accent: YO-YO CAMP STOVE HAM HOCK DIP STICK DUCK SOUP HAT RACK PING-PONG LIP SYNC!!!! ... Their language is unrelated to Chinese or Japanese, closer, in fact, to Finnish and Hungarian."

"[E]verywhere there was the curiously clanging, grumbling tone of Korean speech."

"고래 싸움에 새우등 터진다"

"콩 심은데 콩나고, 팥 심은데 팥난다"

"낮말은 새가 듣고 밤말은 쥐가 듣는다."

"[R]ivers and mountains change after a decade."

"아는 길도 물어가라"

"사촌이 땅을 사면 배가 아프다"

"뜻이 있는 곳에 길이 있다"

"손바닥으로 하늘을 가리려한다"

"원숭이도 나무에서 떨어진다."

"서당개 삼 년에 풍월 읊는다"

"박수를 치려면 두 손이 있어야 합니다"

"빈 수레가 요란하다"

"방귀뀐 놈이 성낸다"

"닭의 모가지를 비틀어도 새벽은 온다"