Brian Reynolds Myers quotes:

People tend to overlook the fact that North Korea's economy collapsed at about the same time as South Koreans lost faith in their own state. The late 1980s and early 1990s were a time when South Koreans were questioning the very legitimacy of their republic.

If South Korea is going to survive, and keep the peace on the peninsula, its citizens need to start conveying support for their state.

That's a mistake I think that a lot of Western observers make is to assume that Korean nationalism is hundreds if not thousands of years old. When in fact nationalism is incompatible with Korean Confucian tradition.

Even North Korean people who are not necessarily happy with economic policies are still loyal to the state itself. It's a military-first state, so whether it does very well on the economic front or not, is not central to public support for it.

North Korea not only wants unification, it absolutely has to have unification. That's really the only way this state can feel secure.

Confucianism is all about tempering your instincts with intellectual discipline, with book learning.

Talking is always a good idea. There's no harm in keeping lines of communication open.

People used to expect literary novels to deepen the experience of living; now they are happy with any sustained display of writerly cleverness.

Just after Kim Jong Il's death, the official news agency put out an article saying that under Kim Jong Il's rule, the people had been like naive children without a care in the world.

I'm not a writer. I like being a reader.

I think the West needs to get away from the habit of regarding the regime's nuclear tests and ballistic launches as isolated provocations timed to generate maximum attention.

Life cannot be classified in terms of a simple neurological ladder, with human beings at the top; it is more accurate to talk of different forms of intelligence, each with its strengths and weaknesses. This point was well demonstrated in the minutes before last December's tsunami, when tourists grabbed their digital cameras and ran after the ebbing surf, and all the 'dumb' animals made for the hills.

The idolatry of food cuts across class lines. This can be seen in the public's toleration of a level of cruelty in meat production that it would tolerate nowhere else. If someone inflicts pain on an animal for visual, aural, or sexual gratification, we consider him a monster, and the law makes at least a token effort at punishment. If someone's goal is to put the "product" in his mouth? ...

People who cannot distinguish between good and bad language, or who regard the distinction as unimportant, are unlikely to think carefully about anything else.