Anna Lashkarev

“The quickest way for a modern Japanese woman to gain the love of a man is to become corpse-like. The kind of men who want those women are dead themselves. Indeed, it’s because they’re dead that they’re so terrified of anyone with a sense of life about them.”
― Asako Yuzuki, Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder

“No one in his life knew he had such a friend until now, until Sergeant Pepper told her. Somebody goes ahead and dies and all of a sudden you become a box for them, he thought, you store these things that no one has ever seen and you go on living like that, your head a coffin to keep memories of the dead alive. But what do you do with that kind of box? Where do you put it down?”
― Ocean Vuong, The Emperor of Gladness

“To be alive and try to be a decent person, and not turn into anything big or grand, that's the hardest thing of all. You think being president is hard? Ha. Don't you see that every president becomes a millionaire after he leaves office? If you can be nobody, and stand on your own two feet for as long as I have, that's enough. Look at my girl, all that talent and for what, just to drown in Bud Light?" [...] "People don't know what's enough, Labas. That's their problem. They think they suffer, but they're really just bored. They don't eat enough carrots.”
― Ocean Vuong, The Emperor of Gladness

“Words cast spells. You should know this as a writer. That's why it's called spelling, Labas.”
― Ocean Vuong, The Emperor of Gladness