Top 100 Mary H.K. Choi Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “You know, the trick to taking care of your sister is letting her think she’s taking care of you.” She scoops my hand in hers. “I suspect you can ask your father the best way to do that since he does it so well with me.” This makes me laugh.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

52. “Cancer must feel like such a betrayal, knowing that somewhere deep in your body you’re manufacturing tiny bombs that detonate and catch fire.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

53. “Families are a trip,” says Lee. “You think you know them so well that you stay wrong about each other.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

54. “Loving someone was traumatizing.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

55. “I know what it’s like to want to leave. How it feels when the home you have is a mirage, an illusion. But I know that wherever I am, if June’s around, I’ll be ok.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

56. “It’s not my responsibility to get to the bottom of why my mom’s so unhappy. Nor is it on me to teach my dad how to parent. I love them and I forgive them, but I don’t go to the hardware store looking for orange juice and I don’t expect them to give me things they don’t have. I give myself permission not to spend time with them.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

57. “Men don’t enjoy the taste of lipstick though they like the look of it.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

58. “I’m no longer angry. In fact, I’m no longer much of anything.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

59. “Everything about my existence feels like a costume.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

60. “Penny would stop trying. Instead she’d spend time preparing for her future, living in books until the exciting part of her life would begin. Things would matter then. In fact, everything would be different.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

61. “It wasn’t a romance; it was too perfect for that. With texts there were only the words and none of the awkwardness. They could get to know each other completely and get comfortable before they had to do anything unnecessarily overwhelming like look at each other’s eyeballs with their eyeballs.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

62. “Marriages are the original tiny cult.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

63. “I want a world where everything lights up because I’m in it.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

64. “He couldn’t believe Jude’s mute, macabre roommate had saved his life. He wondered if he’d have to get her a small taxidermied spider or something for her efforts.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

65. “Penny thought of this Korean saying for when you really, really liked something. You’d say it ‘fit your heart exactly.’ Sam fit her heart exactly.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

66. “I’m thrilled at the devastation. Destroying beautiful things so carelessly and so fast.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

67. “Humans need to share their darkest parts. Unburdening makes you closer to everyone.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

68. “Unlike cooking, photography kept you on your toes. It was chaotic and human – utterly unpredictable. to capture an unposed face you had to wait for it. It was spear fishing. you had to move between the competing rhythms of the world and strike.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

69. “The thought of doing all of this over makes my soul leave my body. I can’t imagine how tiring it’s going to be. But I also love the idea of June’s name looking after both of us.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

70. “I think I get to miss you. I feel like I’ve earned it.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

71. “And for all the people waiting for permission to level up enough before they start working on something big and scary – just go in. Don’t be like me.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

72. “People like capable, positive people. It has nothing to do with reality.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

73. “Certain parts of San Francisco are what happens when white people have no natural predator.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

74. “At least now she had time to write. All the time. In the world. Alone. Forever.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

75. “There was no way Penny would go to House and let Sam see her. That would ruin everything. Sam would take one look at her and be like, “Yikes, never mind.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

76. “Dude. Every mom is the most annoying human in the universe, but most of them, besides the super-abusive genuinely bad ones, are in your corner.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

77. “Penny believed with her whole heart that there were moments – crucial instances – that defined who someone was going to be. There were clues or signs, and you didn’t want to miss them.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

78. “Plenty of people craved attention. It had to be the right person, someone who naturally commanded it. Sam suspected most outwardly noisy people were boring in the inside. No more than the textbook swirl of insecurities and narcissism.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

79. “There was no way she’d allow him to see her do 97 percent of her normal activities. She was a monster. A monster who was flat as a board with no ass. In fact, the only thing she had going on in the curves department was an enormous cystic pimple on her chin that hurt when she touched it. Yeah, no.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

80. “In hindsight he was glad it wasn’t the good taco spot because it would have been ruined forever. Anyplace that charged seventy-five cents for condiments could burn in hell. On principle.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

81. “Baby,′ he said. Behind ‘bae’, Penny despised ‘baby’ as a thing for a grown adult woman to be called. It was so prescriptive. Like dressing sexy for Halloween.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

82. “He holds me longer than I’d expected him to. I leech everything I can out of the hug. Bleed it.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

83. “As cool as glaucoma and lung cancer. Penny had never had a cigarette in her life, and if they did smoke together Penny would probably have a coughing fit that lasted forever and ended on an audible fart.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

84. “To be a hero, you had to decide it was you.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

85. “It’s demoralizing when wins have nothing to do with talent.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

86. “Sam wanted to get up, calmly set his napkin down, and sprint out into the night.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

87. “The last thing I asked you was “You good?” Well, are you? I think about it all the time.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

88. “People scared Penny all the time. Like her mother and even Sam. It meant she loved them.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

89. “It wasn’t a romance; it was too perfect for that.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

90. “She wished she could explore his body and inspect him. Learn him and memorize him. That way she’d know what to miss when he was gone. Sam was heartbreakingly, hauntingly beautiful. It made her heart hurt. This couldn’t end well.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

91. “Instead she’d spend time preparing for her future, living in books until until the exciting part of her life would begin.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

92. “When Penny left a banana on her desk as an offering, Jude rejected it. She refused it by putting it on Penny’s work chair, so when Penny went to write, she sat on it. As tiny passive-aggressive revenges went, it was adorable, and it killed Penny that they couldn’t laugh about it.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

93. “People were odd. Sam loved and loathed that about them. Fiction was fine, but real life was the true freak show.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

94. “What you’re calling a hobby could change his life. And if it doesn’t, that has to be okay. You have to forgive him. You’ve got to let people mess up and you’ve still got to help them. You have to talk to them and support them while they make decisions, even if they’re the wrong ones. That’s how people learn, mom. Umma-ni-kah.” Because you’re the mom.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

95. “When I recognize people, it lets me hope that maybe they recognize me, too.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

96. “You know, the trick to taking care of your sister is letting her think she’s taking care of you.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

97. “I want out of this store, out of this moment, out of my skin. I need an elastic band to snap around my wrist. I rub my eyes until I see stars. I rub them again as if I can scrape the horrible, weak-willed pipe dreams from my brain.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

98. “Trying to get better at the thing you want to be the best at is humiliating.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

99. “She laughed. “Are you in love with Penny?” “How is that a conclusion? That’s a question.” Jude rolled her eyes. “She says she’s in love with you.” “She did not.” “Fine, she didn’t say those exact words, but it’s the only explanation. She’s in love with you.” “Stop,” he said. “You know she’s inscrutable. You ever notice how she seems furious when she’s super excited?” Jude laughed. “Or when she’s actually furious and starts bawling? That’s a classic,” she responded.”

— Mary H.K. Choi

100. “In loving my people, I am a late bloomer and feel horribly prodigal for it.”

— Mary H.K. Choi