kin

“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Even if something happens to us, even if we die and never have to deal with them again, the same thing will happen to someone, somewhere. The same thing. The weak always go through this, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Because the strong never go away. That’s why you want to pretend to be like them, isn’t it? You want to join them.”
― Mieko Kawakami, Heaven

“I was so scared of being hurt that I'd done nothing. I was so scared of failing, of being hurt, that I choose nothing. I did nothing.”
― Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

“You can make people believe whatever you want. You can fool them like it’s nothing. But you can’t fool yourself, not really. That’s why what matters is how you think about your work in your own lifetime, how much you respect it, how hard you’re trying. Or tried.”
― Mieko Kawakami, All The Lovers In The Night