NYX > NYX's Quotes

“My wish for you:
to be alone without being lonely
to reflect without regret to anticipate without fear to love without dependence to give without expectation to grow without attachment to embrace yourself without exception to be here now without distraction to live joyfully without condition to choose yourself without guilt, shame, doubt, or hesitation.”
― Melody Godfred, Self Love Poetry: For Thinkers & Feelers

“Looking deep within myself is always difficult. Especially when I’m in the throes of negative emotion. How shall I describe it? It’s like I know everything is fine, but I can’t stop myself from endlessly checking to make sure it really is fine, and in the process I make myself miserable. Today was like that. I just felt like whining. And leaning on someone, and being sad. To me, sadness is the path of least resistance, the most familiar and close-at-hand emotion I have. A habit that has encrusted itself onto my everyday.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“When anger trawls the internet, Looking for a hook; It’s time to disconnect, And go and read a book.”
― Matt Haig, Notes on a Nervous Planet

“Reading lets us live in someone else’s shoes. Literature builds bridges; it makes our world larger, not smaller.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“I wonder about others like me, who seem totally fine on the outside but are rotting on the inside, where the rot is this vague state of being not-fine and not-devastated at the same time.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“When you're having a hard time, it's natural to feel like you're having the hardest time in the world. And it's not selfish to feel that way.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“Books never tire of me. And in time they present a solution, quietly waiting until I am fully healed.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“You keep obsessively holding yourself to these idealised standards, forcing yourself to fit them. It's another way, among many, for you to keep punishing yourself.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“What matters isn't what people say but what you like and find joy in. I hope you focus less on how you look to other people and more on fulfilling your true desires.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“I don’t know why an individual has to be treated as less-than and strive to fit society’s standards when it’s the people who denigrate
others who are the real problem. That frustrates me. That I can’t step out of this frame, that I still feel inferior when I meet someone supposedly superior to me, and that I feel confident and comfortable when I meet someone supposedly inferior – I
absolutely loathe that about myself.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“What I need to practice from now on is to stop trapping myself in the same formula of, 'This is what I have to be doing,' and to simply acknowledge the fact that I am an independent individual.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“If twenty-year-old me met me today, she would cry with joy. And that's enough for me.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“If you grow enough self-esteem. When that happens, you may find you're no longer interested in aspiring to perfection or chasing some ideal.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“Beauty meant that you were good. And being good meant being happy. Happiness can be defined all kinds of ways, but human beings, consciously or unconsciously, are always pulling for their own version of happiness. Even people who want to die see death as a kind of solace, and view ending their lives as the only way to make it there. Happiness is the base unit of consciousness, our single greatest motivator.”
― Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

“You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" She exhaled through her nose. "It's really simple, I promise. Why do people think this is okay? Why do people see no harm in having children? They do it with smiles on their faces, as if it's not an act of violence. You force this other being into the world, this other being that never asked to be born. You do this absurd thing because that's what you want for yourself, and that doesn't make any sense.....I know how this sounds. You think I sound extreme, or detached from reality. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is real life. That's what I'm talking about - the pain that comes with reality. Not that anyone ever sees it...Most people go around believing life is good, one giant blessing, like the world we live in is so beautiful, and despite the pain, it's actually this amazing place”
― Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

“Then there are the real bastards, like my ex,” she shook her head. “He went around, patting himself on the back, like he’s so much better than all those men. ‘I know the pain that women feel, I respect women. I’ve written papers about it, I know where all the landmines are. My favorite author is Virginia Woolf’ and all that . . . So fucking what, though, right? How many times did you clean the house last month? How many times did you cook? How many times did you go grocery shopping?” I laughed.”
― Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

“Writing makes me happy. But it goes beyond that. Writing is my life’s work. I am absolutely positive that this is what I’m here to do. Even if it turns out that I don’t have the ability, and no one out there wants to read a single word of it, there’s nothing I can do about this feeling. I can’t make it go away.”
― Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

“Almost all people have this potential for evil, which would be unleashed only under certain dangerous social circumstances.”
― Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II

“The Rape of Nanking did not penetrate the world consciousness in the same manner as the Holocaust or Hiroshima because the victims themselves had remained silent.”
― Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II

“I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“What do you want from us? The dumb girls are too dumb, the smart girls are too smart, and the average girls are too unexceptional?”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“While offenders were in fear of losing a small part of their privilege, the victims were running the risk of losing everything.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“You’re right. In a world where doctors can cure cancer and do heart transplants, there isn’t a single pill to treat menstrual cramps.’ Her sister pointed at her own stomach. ‘The world wants our uterus to be drug-free. Like sacred grounds in a virgin forest.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“The fact that they have families and parents,” Eunsil retorted, “is why they shouldn’t do these things, not why we should forgive them.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“People who pop a painkiller at the smallest hint of a migraine, or who need anaesthetic cream to remove a mole, demand that women giving birth should gladly endure the pain, exhaustion, and mortal fear. As if that’s maternal love. This idea of “maternal love” is spreading like religious dogma. Accept Maternal Love as your Lord and Savior, for the Kingdom is near!”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“I've noticed this about new employees over the years. The women take on all the cumbersome, minor tasks without being asked, while guys never do. Doesn´t matter if they're new or the youngest - they never do anything they're not told to do. But why do women simply take things upon themselves?”
― Cho Nam-Joo, 82년생 김지영

“Being beautiful, was that for men?'
'Yes. Some women say that it is for ourselves. What on earth can we do with it? I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Sometimes, I used to sit under the sky, on a clear night, and gaze at the stars, saying, in my croaky voice: “Lord, if you’re up there somewhere, and you aren’t too busy, come and say a few words to me, because I’m very lonely and it would make me so happy.” Nothing happened. So I reckon that humanity— which I wonder whether I belong to —really had a very vivid imagination.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men