“My mom would frequently tell me to save your tears for when your mothe...” — Michelle Zauner Quote

“My mom would frequently tell me to save your tears for when your mother dies.”

“I never made kimchi before. I talk about my first time making it in the book, and I'm not a big baker, but I imagine it's like a similar kind of feeling for a lot of people who are bakers where it's just something that takes time. There's so much space to be reflective and meditative.”

“Once death was really close to me, I suddenly became very fearful of it. I think that lit a fire in me like, 'What do you have to say before it happens?'”

“When my father died, my mother was still alive. And I think when your second parent dies, there is that shock: 'Oh man, I'm an orphan.' There's also this relief: It's done; it's finished; it's over.”

“He only half dies who leaves an image of himself in his sons.”

“Novelists tend to go off at 70, and I'm in a funk about it, I've got myself into a real paranoid funk about it, how the talent dies before the body.”