wiwi

“Kiyo, what would you do if all of a sudden I weren't here any more?' Satoko asked, her words coming in a rushed whisper.

This was a long-standing trick of Satoko's for disconcerting people. Perhaps she achieved her effects without conscious effort, but she never allowed the slightest hint of mischief into her tone to put her victim at ease. Her voice would be heavy with pathos at such times, as though confiding the gravest of secrets.

Although he should have been inured to this by now, Kiyoaki could not help asking: 'Not here any more? Why?'

Despite all his efforts to indicate a studied disinterest, Kiyoaki's reply betrayed his uneasiness. It was what Satoko wanted.

'I can't tell you why,' she answered, deftly dropping ink into the clear waters of Kiyoaki's heart...”
― Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow

“He strips me to my last nakedness, that underskin of mauve, pearlized satin, like a skinned rabbit; then dresses me again in an embrace so lucid and encompassing it might be made of water. And shakes over me dead leaves as if into the stream I have become.
Sometimes the birds, at random, all singing, strike a chord.
His skin covers me entirely; we are like two halves of a seed, enclosed in the same integument. I should like to grow enormously small, so that you could swallow me, like those queens in fairy tales who conceive when they swallow a grain of corn or a sesame seed. Then I could lodge inside your body and you would bear me.”
― Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.”
― Yoshida Kenkō, A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees