Before The Coffee Gets Cold Quotes

“The first rule was: The only people you can meet while in the past are those who have visited the cafe.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“Coffee was introduced to Japan in the Edo period, around the late seventeenth century. Initially it didn’t appeal to Japanese taste buds and it was certainly not thought of as something one drank for enjoyment – which was no wonder, considering it tasted like black, bitter water.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“She wrote of events which ranged from the mundane to the major news of the day, explaining in detail her feelings and reactions.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“Ever since Kumi had appeared in the cafe, Hirai had wanted to hug her tightly and yell, ‘Don’t die!’ The effort alone of not saying this was keeping her busy.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“How kindly you look at me after I’ve been so horrible for so long. You held on to these kind feelings while you continued to wait for me for so long.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“After a long silence of being lost in her feelings Hirai managed to mutter just two words. ‘Thank you.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“She felt the grief surge from the bottom of her heart. She wanted to scream and bawl, but she couldn’t cry out.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“She breathed in and exhaled with a moan, filled with all the painful grief seeping from her heart.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“Pablo Picasso’s sketch of a nude man that he did at age eight is remarkable. The painting he did at age fourteen of a Catholic communion ceremony is very realistic. But later, after the shock of his best friend’s suicide, he created paintings in shades of blue that became known as the Blue Period. Then he met a new lover and created the bright and colourful works of the Rose Period. Influenced by African sculptures, he became part of the cubist movement. Then he turned to a neoclassical style, continued on to surrealism, and eventually painted the famous works The Weeping Woman and Guernica.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“His dream was to become a potter with his own studio. He had endured many long years without recognition, held captive by the dream of success. Then he’d been cheated and fallen into a deep despair, unable to see why only his life was so unhappy. But he had been about to cause his mother even greater suffering than he had experienced . . .”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Tales from the Cafe

“When spring begins, however, cannot be pinpointed to one particular moment. There is no one day that clearly marks when winter ends and spring begins. Spring hides inside winter. We notice it emerging with our eyes, our skin and other senses. We find it in new buds, a comfortable breeze and the warmth of the sun. It exists alongside winter.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Tales from the Cafe

“The girl’s name was Miki Tokita, daughter of the cafe’s owner, Nagare Tokita. She was proudly bearing a bright red randoseru elementary-school backpack.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Tales from the Cafe

“I’d feel pretty rotten if I caused someone extra worries just at the time the world is about to end. I also wouldn’t like it if I didn’t get a reply. So, although proposing to someone might be meaningful, I don’t think I would do it.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“Out of those who want to return to the past, I imagine most of them would be planning to somehow fix the current mess in their life. Yet, however hard they try, they won’t be able to change the present. So they can’t fix their lives!”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“I’d be better off dead than to live alone.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“Perhaps she had never met an adult worthy of her trust.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“They believed they had to love this child in their care properly, but at times it just felt like a chore.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“She was constantly wondering what she was living for. What was the reason for enduring such hardship?”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“We’ve been burning the midnight oil to come up with something you’d like.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“One day has twenty-four hours, while coffee gets cold in just fifteen minutes.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“What kind of idiot daughter was I? Did I seriously want to return to the past to complain? How stupid is that? In the end, I was just thinking about myself. How pathetic, so pathetic . . .”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“Of course, Nanako, Saki, and the man weren’t giving any thought to how One Hundred Questions successfully pushed the reader to make big fork-in-the-road decisions. They were just playing around with the concept of making one’s final choice in the hypothetical scenario of the world ending.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“They had had this conversation many times. Saki was no doubt sincere in her belief that Reiji would be better off forgoing his dream of becoming a comedian. However, Reiji took what she was saying as words in jest. After all, to a man driven by his dreams, such words are like water off a duck’s back.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“To answer her unspoken question, Reiji explained, ‘We use the kanji character for “rice” to write “America”, right? So, if you saw a sign on a shop with the “rice” and “shop” kanji characters on it, and walked into the shop expecting to buy some rice, but found American goods, it would be a case of mistaken identity, right? He just was trying to tell me . . . anyway it’s a pun.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“Burnout syndrome is considered by some to be a type of depression. But while depression begins with stress or fatigue or a large shock like an accident or a loss, burnout syndrome originates with the thought that all of one’s efforts were in vain. It strikes at a time when life is not turning out as expected, despite devotedly pouring one’s soul into a certain activity, usually one’s work.
However, the term is frequently used in Japan when talking about negative psychological states of elite athletes as an aftermath of major events. Such athletes experience a void-like emptiness in the face of achieving their lifetime’s greatest goal, unable to identify the next great challenge.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“Crimson autumn leaves and navy-blue sky. Melancholic, but beautiful.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“Guys who are charming but make terrible boyfriends: bartender, beautician and band member.’
‘No.’
‘So, he’s a 3F!’
‘3F?’
‘Fitness instructor, fireman, fisherman.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“She died . . .
Reiko did not want to believe it or acknowledge it. Like some desperate people drowning their sorrows in alcohol, she was attempting to escape the pain of reality by not sleeping. Tormenting herself was a way to keep a lid on the heartache of losing her sister.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“What scares me . . .’
Yukika paused to take a big sniff.
‘Is just that I’m worried that you will forget how to smile when I die . . .”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“The only thing he’s better at than anyone is his ability to never give up on a dream,’ she said with a heavy sigh.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades