Quotessence
Home / Topics / Korean War Quotes

Korean War Quotes

Browse 53 quotes about Korean War.

Korean War Quotes

“There is an old saying that goes 'Start by plucking a hair, end by killing a man'. It is also said, 'Two hands must meet to make a sound'. The atrocities that happened here weren't carried out by strangers - it was us, the people who'd once lived together harmoniously in the same village." "They say it was the superstitious freaks who did it." "No, it was Satan who did it." "Come now, what sort of a ghost is that?" Ryu Yosop replied, "It is the black thing that lives in the heart of every man.”

WarDeathEvilKorean War
Book:The Guest
Create image

“The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is a city consecrated to the worship of a father-son dynasty. (I came to think of them, with their nuclear-family implications, as 'Fat Man and Little Boy.') And a river runs through it. And on this river, the Taedong River, is moored the only American naval vessel in captivity. It was in January 1968 that the U.S.S. Pueblo strayed into North Korean waters, and was boarded and captured. One sailor was killed; the rest were held for nearly a year before being released. I looked over the spy ship, its radio antennae and surveillance equipment still intact, and found photographs of the captain and crew with their hands on their heads in gestures of abject surrender. Copies of their groveling 'confessions,' written in tremulous script, were also on show. So was a humiliating document from the United States government, admitting wrongdoing in the penetration of North Korean waters and petitioning the 'D.P.R.K.' (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) for 'lenience.' Kim Il Sung ('Fat Man') was eventually lenient about the men, but not about the ship. Madeleine Albright didn't ask to see the vessel on her visit last October, during which she described the gruesome, depopulated vistas of Pyongyang as 'beautiful.' As I got back onto the wharf, I noticed a refreshment cart, staffed by two women under a frayed umbrella. It didn't look like much—one of its three wheels was missing and a piece of brick was propping it up—but it was the only such cart I'd see. What toothsome local snacks might the ladies be offering? The choices turned out to be slices of dry bread and cups of warm water. Nor did Madeleine Albright visit the absurdly misnamed 'Demilitarized Zone,' one of the most heavily militarized strips of land on earth. Across the waist of the Korean peninsula lies a wasteland, roughly following the 38th parallel, and packed with a titanic concentration of potential violence. It is four kilometers wide (I have now looked apprehensively at it from both sides) and very near to the capital cities of both North and South. On the day I spent on the northern side, I met a group of aging Chinese veterans, all from Szechuan, touring the old battlefields and reliving a war they helped North Korea nearly win (China sacrificed perhaps a million soldiers in that campaign, including Mao Anying, son of Mao himself). Across the frontier are 37,000 United States soldiers. Their arsenal, which has included undeclared nuclear weapons, is the reason given by Washington for its refusal to sign the land-mines treaty. In August 1976, U.S. officers entered the neutral zone to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of an observation post. A posse of North Koreans came after them, and one, seizing the ax with which the trimming was to be done, hacked two U.S. servicemen to death with it. I visited the ax also; it's proudly displayed in a glass case on the North Korean side.”

WarPoliticsUnited StatesChinaNuclear WeaponsTotalitarianismNorth KoreaWashington Dc1968South KoreaKorean War1976United States ArmyMao Zedong20002001Kim Jong IlSeoulKim Il SungPyongyangMadeleine AlbrightChinese PeopleAxe Murder IncidentKorean Demilitarized ZoneLand MinesSichuanKorean PeninsulaOttawa TreatyTaedong RiverUnited States And WmdUss Pueblo Ager 2
Book:Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
Create image

“When an event is ongoing, it's impossible to mourn it. I'm thinking about having to abandon my dying father when I fled. Grief sets in and stays with you for life. I have never been able to mourn my father. The same goes for our country – the division of Korea into two countries is ongoing, so we cannot mourn it, and that is why we suffer so.”

LossGriefKorean WarOpression
Book:The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape From North Korea
Create image

“I wrote Dreams of My Mothers because it reveals deep insight into a topic - cross boarder, cross racial adoption - that rarely gets much attention from any quarter, because it represents such a niche subset of our society, but contains within it nearly all the most deeply felt – and held – human themes, passions, values, insecurities, and judgments. And loves.”

InspirationalChristianRaceMothersAmerican DreamAdoptionBiracialAmericanismKorean WarCulture Identity
Author:Joel L.A. Peterson
Create image

“Even in former days, Korea was known as the 'hermit kingdom' for its stubborn resistance to outsiders. And if you wanted to create a totally isolated and hermetic society, northern Korea in the years after the 1953 'armistice' would have been the place to start. It was bounded on two sides by the sea, and to the south by the impregnable and uncrossable DMZ, which divided it from South Korea. Its northern frontier consisted of a long stretch of China and a short stretch of Siberia; in other words its only contiguous neighbors were Mao and Stalin. (The next-nearest neighbor was Japan, historic enemy of the Koreans and the cruel colonial occupier until 1945.) Add to that the fact that almost every work of man had been reduced to shards by the Korean War. Air-force general Curtis LeMay later boasted that 'we burned down every town in North Korea,' and that he grounded his bombers only when there were no more targets to hit anywhere north of the 38th parallel. Pyongyang was an ashen moonscape. It was Year Zero. Kim Il Sung could create a laboratory, with controlled conditions, where he alone would be the engineer of the human soul.”

ChinaJapanWorld War IiKoreaNorth KoreaSouth KoreaKorean WarSiberiaMao Zedong1945Joseph StalinKim Il Sung1953PyongyangCurtis LemayKorean Demilitarized ZoneDivision Of KoreaHermit KingdomKorea Under Japanese Rule
Book:Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
Create image

“People say to us, look, it may well be the case that there are fewer wars and fewer genocides, but surely more people are being killed. But when we look at this, the number of people killed in wars involving a state every year, all the wars, and you can see there's a high point, that's the Korean war, and it keeps on going down and down and down. If you look at the average number of people killed per conflict per year, it goes from 37-thousand in 1950 to just 600 in 2002.”

PeopleIfsYearsWellsLooksMayWarStatesNumbersCasesThousandConflictDown AndAverageGenocideFewerInvolvingKoreanHigh PointsKorean War
Author:Andrew Mack
Create image

“In every major war we have fought in the 19th and 20th centuries. Americans have been asked to pay higher taxes - and nonessential programs have been cut - to support the military effort. Yet during this Iraq war, taxes have been lowered and domestic spending has climbed. In contrast to World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, for most Americans this conflict has entailed no economic sacrifice. The only people really sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families.”

PeopleWorldHas BeensWarEffortPaySupportCuttingSacrificeEconomicCenturyMilitaryHigherConflictTaxesMajorsProgramIraqSpendingWar Of The WorldsVietnamWorld War IiContrastWorld War ITroops20th CenturyKoreanIraq WarKorean War
Author:Robert Hormats
Create image

“I remember when Langston Hughes used to write a column in black newspapers around this character Jesse B. Semple. He always used that as a voice, sometimes in comic ways, of having everyday people's voice come through this common folk hero, who was an ordinary working guy. He would talk about anything from police brutality to the Korean War. Those kinds of expression and identification are no longer prevalent in our popular culture.”

PeopleWayWritingKindWarSometimesCharacterRememberUsedGuyCultureBlackVoiceCommonExpressionHeroOrdinaryPoliceEverydayFolksNewspapersComicRemember WhenPolice BrutalityBrutalityColumnsKoreanIdentificationPopular CultureKorean WarCommon Folk
Author:Danny Glover
Create image

“When I grew up, in Taiwan, the Korean War was seen as a good war, where America protected Asia. It was sort of an extension of World War II. And it was, of course, the peak of the Cold War. People in Taiwan were generally proAmerican. The Korean War made Japan. And then the Vietnam War made Taiwan. There is some truth to that.”

PeopleWorldMadeWarAmericaCoursesGrewColdGrew UpWar Of The WorldsJapanVietnamWorld War IiProtectedCold WarExtensionsAsiaVietnam WarKoreanTaiwanKorean WarGood War
Author:Ang Lee
Create image

“All of my high school male teachers were WWII and/or Korean War veterans. They taught my brothers and me the value of service to our country and reinforced what our dad had shown us about the meaning of service.”

WarCountrySchoolValuesTeacherTaughtBrotherDadHigh SchoolMalesOur CountryMy BrotherVeteranWwiiKoreanVeterans DayOur VeteransHonoring VeteransHonoring Our VeteransGreat Veterans DayKorean WarVeterans Day InspirationalWar VeteranHappy Veterans DayFunny Veterans Day
Author:Oliver North
Create image

“Get the hell out of my way!”

WayPhilosophyCourageHellMilitaryStrengthArmyLeavingMy WayNovelistsRacingHave CourageStrength Of WillInspirational MilitaryAtlasCourage StrengthAmerican SoldierAmerican MilitaryCar RacingGreat MilitaryMilitary LeaderFunny Bumper StickerPower And StrengthKorean WarInspirational StrengthMilitary SoldierMilitary LeadershipHuman StrengthFunny Car RacingMy SoldierLife StrengthBe Strong And CourageousStrength And Life
Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
Create image

“It will begin with its President taking a simple, firm resolution. The resolution will be: To forego the diversions of politics and to concentrate on the job of ending the Korean war-until that job is honorably done. That job requires a personal trip to Korea. I shall make that trip. Only in that way could I learn how best to serve the American people in the cause of peace. I shall go to Korea.”

PeopleWayWarDoneJobsCausesPresidentSimpleColdFirmResolutionCold WarKoreaKoreanDiversionKorean War
Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower
Create image