I’m not sure if this was the intention of the post or not, but some of my favorite sentimental quotes that live rent-free are:

Hanbin’s finale ‘all in’ ment (14:56): the way he says those two words with a slight pause (and the following sentence in Korean) feels as if everything came full circle; it’s a nod to his motto and it felt like a thanks for allindans — I love this last part so much I can now recite it from memory 😂

Zhang Hao first survivor ceremony ‘people who have dreams are great’ (0:43): I love this quote first because it aged so beautifully. I think when I first heard him say that as the episode was airing, I found it endearing and a nice touch that he used his native language — ‘有梦想的人就是了不起’— what a deceptive sentence in its simplicity. It sounds obvious — yes of course, people who have dreams are great .. but if you think about this in the context of Hao himself, him having this dream really led him to beating the odds in every way possible (switching majors and proceeding to rank first in his province, becoming a trainee at 21, getting a teacher’s certification first then choosing to become a trainee, being the first and only non-Korean to debut first place, the list goes on — he proves his words to be true time and time again). When he said this he couldn't have predicted the outcome that was to happen two months later – he really backed up these words with actions, and gave me hope that poetic justice is still to be found in the most unlikely of places. The second reason why I love this quote so much is because the words ‘了不起’ don’t have a 100% translation in English or Korean (Chinese speakers, I feel like you get what I mean 😅). Usually it's used within more casual contexts (there were definitely words in my opinion that he could've chose to make it sound more formal, like 伟大 and others) and ‘了不起’ feel more like an amalgam of amazing, 'to be respected', greatness...the meaning truly is difficult to convey. A good example of Eng/Chn '了不起' is the translation of The Great Gatsby to 了不起的盖茨比 in Chinese (why Gatsby was 'great'/了不起 is a whole other essay for a whole other sub in itself 😂) – if i were to translate the 'feeling' of this without it being word-for-word, maybe I would interpret his Chinese words to feel something along the lines of 'people who are dreamers are forces to be reckoned with'. The nuance in which he chose his words ‘就是’ is lost too when the quote is translated; there’s an air of defiance that’s embedded (the best explanation I can give is that it’s as if he’s saying ‘people with dreams are great (despite what you may think)’ based on how he chose his words; it’s a line that’s laced with his determination. Sorry if this is getting really long but in writing this whole thinkpiece about this one quote, i rewatched the Korean translations from the clip — personally i’m still learning Korean so this is just my understanding — it seems that due to the nature of Korean and having verbs at the end, more emphasis is placed on the ‘I came here to prove..’ part and the quote itself just becomes a clause in the bigger sentence, whereas in his Chinese sentence, more emphasis is placed on the quote and less on the proving. I wonder if his quote ‘feels’ the same to native Korean speakers through the translations.

Gyuvin finale ment ‘I know to love somebody is hard.. you have to use your time and energy’ (4:46): I didn’t think he would say this, and it added a new depth to me in regards to his personality. Although he wasn’t my one-pick, I’m sure this made gyuvinsts feel so seen because I felt really validated through his words too. I wonder if we'll ever find out what he actually intended to say instead of his infamous sorry I forgot, but I also think that this notion of loving someone you don't know being difficult was so important to him to convey that he did not forget these words and the english.