Sonoko Machida > Quotes

“Whenever I go somewhere new, I can’t help thinking what strange places convenience stores are”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“It's hard to know what's inside a person. If you judge people only by their words and faces, you miss the really important things. But then, what should we do instead? I think it's best to let people's actions speak for themselves.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“to eat without enjoying yourself is to disrespect the food.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“I like you free, so I raised you that way. You have nothing to be sorry for,”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“First of all, it's very rare just to discover that you feel that way about anything. And when you do, the environment and circumstances you need to devote yourself to it are fairly hard to find. Maybe you also need talent, right? Most people get frustrated and think, it's no food, I've gone as far as I can go. Then they quit.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Talent is being able to keep going.' Tsugi said, simply. 'Successful people all say that. They just had to find a way to keep going, no matter what. If you can do that for long enough without reward, can't we call that talent?”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“He had mocked, he had failed to get the results he wanted, and still, he had been utterly unable to give up manga. He had worked hard, in his own way, but maybe it was time to quit. He had to rethink his life. He had the feeling that if he didn't, a day would come that was even worse than the present one.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Have I become an old man already at thirty-three?" he wondered.

By this point in his life, he should have made great progress along the road towards fulfilment of his dreams. But the ideal self that he had pictured so many times in his young head was nowhere to be found.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“I did the exact same thing again. I spent so much time in my head about it, thinking no way ever again will I let this happen. I was sure that was enough, but I was a total failure. Just because I got a little mad...”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Ever since kindergarten, Azusa had dreamed of becoming a pastry chef. The first thing she remembered writing was an essay about building a shop that looked like a gingerbread house.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Remember when you told me before that you wanted to develop products for Tenderness? I said I thought that was fine, but now, I really, really want you to do it,' Nayuta said. 'Then if anything bad happens, I can always go to a Tenderness store somewhere, eat the cakes that you made, and I'll always feel better. As long as there's a Tenderness, there will be somewhere we can meet.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Look around you. Those who care enough to risk anything real for what they love are actually surprisingly few. First of all, it's very rare just to discover that you feel that way about anything. And when you do, the environment and circumstances you need to devote yourself to it are fairly hard to find. Maybe you also need talent, right? Most people get frustrated and think, it's no good, I've gone as far as I can go. Then they quit.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Normal was actually different for everyone.”
― Sonoko Machida

“That's not the point!' he shouted. 'It's got nothing to do with what someone else would do! To tear myself apart about about this for so long, and then when the crucial moment comes, to make the same mistake again? - I can't forgive myself, and there's nothing I can do about it!”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Your skills are weak, but your personality is too strong. Besides, I can't let someone who's basically an amateur touch my work. It will hurt the quality.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“You tried as hard as you could, didn't you? Even though you hoped you were wrong. That it wouldn't end with a broken home, or anything like that.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“I legami tra le persone non sono fili singoli, no? Sono un insieme di fili intrecciati che si ingrossano e formano trame uniche.”
― Sonoko machida, La casa del nespolo

“It was the first time he had heard this confession from Kozeki. But strangely it didn't feel new at all. It felt like something that he had always seen, if only vaguely, veiled in mist, which had now emerged clearly, revealing its true form at last.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“You can have regrets in life, but that doesn't mean you can't do something about them. It's okay.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“I don't care what they say. There are more important things to do than worry about what other people think. I don't want to be sorry later that I missed something really important because I was too focused on things that didn't matter.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“The words were so foreign to Azusa she had a hard time understanding them. Critical, cancer, terminal, caregivers. She'd read them in books and heard them on television dramas, sure enough, but was Nayuta describing her own father?”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Of course it would worry me to see him stumbling blindly through life, searching for fulfillment. At some point he'll have to set aside his dreams and learn to live life as a mature, independent human being. But I believe there will come a time when he has a clear sense of what he wants to do. Or that's my hope, anyway.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Oh please, stop,' said Mogi. 'You've made a terrible mistake. Do you understand that your actual skills are at the level of an elementary student's notebook scrawl? It's a miracle that you ever made it to the finals at all!”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Until recently, I thought that love and longing didn't exist. But love existed long before I was born, and longing was there in me, too. It was there in Mitsumi, and love and longing were definitely there in Tsugi. The world is overflowing with it. And maybe one day, I'll know love. I'll pine for love, and lose it, I'll laugh and cry over it, and maybe like my parents did, I'll find a way to keep it. Even if that's still far off in my future.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Their faces lit up as they looked at the picture that Yoshirō had made. A smile rose of its own accord on his face. The whole reason he wanted to draw in the first place, he recalled, was to see faces like these. He wanted to draw pictures that would make people really feel something.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“When he first moved to the area for work, Yoshiro too, was surprised by the sight, and found it fascinating. When he stood at the beginning of the tracks, he felt a surge of happiness at the thought that his personal potential could run on forever from there.

But now it only seemed like the end of the line. Just as Mojiko station was both the starting point and the terminus for this train, Yoshiro's possibilities were not stretching off endlessly, but instead gasping their dying breath. He would just keep on doing the same thing, one day after the next.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“Yoshirō’s possibilities were not stretching off endlessly, but instead gasping their dying breath.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“There are more important things to do than worry about what other people think. I don't want to be sorry later that I missed something really important because I was focused on things that didn't matter.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“You’re the only one who understands, so you’re the only one who doesn’t ask me about it. That’s a great gift.”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea

“How many people in the world find their dream job? We ask middle-school students to talk about their dreams for the future, but how many of them actually make those dreams come true?”
― Sonoko Machida, The Convenience Store by the Sea