- "He held the promise of an entire life in the palm of his hand ... Looking at his face, you got the impression that he was relaxed and happy ... And, above all, proud." -- Ruth Ozeki, All Over Creation
- "I love you, Daddy," I sobbed into his palm. "You're with me, too." -- Ruth Ozeki, All Over Creation
- "Maybe you had everything else, but you never had such a blessing. You never had daughters." -- Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride
- "Why punish the flesh? Why stint the body? Why incur its resentments, its obscure revenges, its headaches and hunger pains?" -- Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride
- "Memory is the same overlap, the same kind of pleat, only backwards." -- Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride
- “I knew “midway the journey” was supposed to mean midlife crisis. But to me it seemed that one had always been midway the journey of our life, and would be maybe right up until the moment of death.” -- Elif Batuman, The Idiot
- “Even though I had a deep conviction that I was good at writing, and that in some way I already was a writer, this conviction was completely independent of my having ever written anything, or being able to imagine ever writing anything, that I thought anyone would like to read.” -- Elif Batuman, The Idiot
- "I suppose I just wasn't able to ally myself with time." -- Hiromi Kawakami, Strange Weather in Tokyo
- “Love is to get caught on something,” he said readily. “It’s to be unable to forget.” -- Elif Batuman, Either/Or
- "Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them." -- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
- "I'm reaching forward through time to touch you... you're reaching back to touch me." -- Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being
- "Life is full of stories. Or maybe life is only stories." -- Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being
- "Which is more important, I wonder — not to be lonely, or to live the life you've chosen for yourself?" -- Kikuko Tsumura, There's No Such Thing as An Easy Job
- "Nobody's life was untouched by loneliness; it was just a question of whether or not you were able to accept that loneliness for what it was. Put another way, everyone was lonely, and it was up to them whether they chose to bury that loneliness through relationships with other people, and if so, of what sort of intensity and depth." - Kikuko Tsumura, There's No Such Thing as An Easy Job
- "The time had come to embrace the ups and downs again. I had no way of knowing what pitfalls might be lying in wait for me, but what I'd discovered by doing five jobs in such a short span of time was this: the same was true of everything. You never know what was going to happen, whatever you did. You just had to give it your all, and hope for the best. Hope like anything it would turn out alright." -- Kikuko Tsumura, There's No Such Thing as An Easy Job
- "I am my own home, and this is where I belong, and things keep going forward, endlessly, just as the blue of the sky before the dawn soon turns into a bright sunrise, each with its own beauty." -- Banana Yoshimoto, Lizard
- No matter where you are, you are loved and forgiven, and not only by us." -- Banana Yoshimoto, Lizard
apr 19 2022 ∞
jan 1 2023 +