Inspirations

Books

Fiction

• The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The Nine Cloud Dream - Man-Jung Kim
• Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
• Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
• The Iliad - Homer
• Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
• East of Eden - John Steinbeck
• The Vegetarian - Han Kang
• The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
• Pachinko - Min-Jin Lee
• Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth
• Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
• Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
• Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• Beloved - Toni Morrison
• The Stranger - Albert Camus
• The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
• Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K Rowling
• The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
• The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
• The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien
• I Am a Cat - Soseki Natsume
• Something to Do with Paying Attention - David Foster Wallace

Non-Fiction

• Narrative of the Life of an American Slave - Frederick Douglass
• The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
• Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
• Man's Search For Meaning - Victor Frankl
• Wherever You Go There You Are - Jon Kabat-Zinn
• Walden - Henry David Thoreau
• The Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
• Basic Writings - Zhuangzi
• How To Solve It - G. Polya
• Attached - Amir Levine and Rachel S.F. Heller
• Principles - Ray Dalio
• Confessions - Saint Augustine
• Crying in Hmart - Michelle Zauner
• Can't Hurt Me - David Goggins
• Singing Like a Cricket, Hooting Like an Owl - Kyu-bo Yi
• AI 2041 - Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig

Religious Texts

• The Bible
• The Lotus Sutra

Movies

• The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)
• Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
• Peppermint Candy (1999)
• 12 Angry Men (1957)
• Only Yesterday (1991)
• 8 Mile (2002)
• Train to Busan (2016)
• Oldboy (2003)
• Full Metal Jacket (1987)
• Ode to My Father (2014)
• The Taste of Things (2023)
• Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
• My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999)
• Robot Dreams (2023)
• Spider-Man 2 (2004)
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
• Kung Fu Panda (2008)
• Shrek (2001)
• Farewell My Concubine (1993)
• Inglourious Basterds (2009)
• The Iron Claw (2023)
• The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
• A Silent Voice (2016)
• Oppenheimer (2023)
• Chungking Express (1994)
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
• Yi Yi (2000)
• The Matrix (1999)
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
• District 9 (2009)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Shows

• Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)
• Bojack Horseman (2014)
• Breaking Bad (2008)
• Your Lie In April (2014)
• Parasyte: The Maxim (2014)
• Dandadan (2024)
• Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)
• Devilman Crybaby (2018)

Music

Performances

• Madame Butterfly
• Little Shop of Horrors
• Les Miserables
• Death of a Salesman
• The Book of Mormon
• Maybe Happy Ending

Talks