“How much can a person understand another person?
To what extent does the shop owner I see now and then know me? People cannot possibly see through one another simply because they are in each other’s sight every day. Even blood relatives and married couples have trouble reading each other’s minds.
The human mind is so vast and deep, with layers of thoughts intertwining endlessly within it. Yet people often only look at others through the mirrors they hold in their hands.
How possible is it to understand someone’s heart with the aid of nothing more than one’s own experiences and knowledge?
In life, there are bound to be moments when an individual has to make certain choices against his or her better wishes.”
– The elderly protagonist’s conversation with his son-in-law in My Daughter Seo-Young
The A-Philosopher's Chair 
Many thanks to Hiedi
for the inspiration!
The dull green time-stained panes
of the windows look upon each other
with the cowardly glances of cheats.
— Maxim Gorky • Creatures That Once Were Men
“A novel is a mirror walking down a road. […] But novels commenced with hesitation or chaos. Readers were never fully in balance. A door a lock a weir opened and they rushed through, one hand holding a gunnel, the other a hat. When she begins a book, she enters through stilted doorways into large courtyards. Parma and Paris and India spread their carpets.”
– Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient (1992)