“Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”
―
―
“Water beneath me, water above me, water in me--I was water. How appropriate that the one definition of the Japanese character for my name was "rain." I, too, was precious and copious, inoffensive and deadly, silent and raucous, joyous and despicable, live-giving and corrosive, pure and grasping, patient and insidious, musical and off-key--but more than any of that, and beyond all those things, I was invulnerable.
...From the heights and depths of my diluvian life, I knew that I was rain and rain was rapture. Some realised it would be best to accept me, let me overwhelm them, let me be who I was. There was no greater luxury than to fall to earth, in sprinkles or in buckets, lashing faces and drenching countryside, swelling sources and overflowing rivers, spoiling weddings and consecrating burials, the blesssing and curse of the skies.
My rainy childhood thrived in Japan like a fish in water.
Tired of my unending passion for my element, Nishio-san would finally call to me, "Out of the lake! You'll dissolve!"
Too late. I had dissolved long before.”
―
...From the heights and depths of my diluvian life, I knew that I was rain and rain was rapture. Some realised it would be best to accept me, let me overwhelm them, let me be who I was. There was no greater luxury than to fall to earth, in sprinkles or in buckets, lashing faces and drenching countryside, swelling sources and overflowing rivers, spoiling weddings and consecrating burials, the blesssing and curse of the skies.
My rainy childhood thrived in Japan like a fish in water.
Tired of my unending passion for my element, Nishio-san would finally call to me, "Out of the lake! You'll dissolve!"
Too late. I had dissolved long before.”
―
“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”
― Hamlet
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”
― Hamlet
Nordic Book Club
— 215 members
— last activity May 07, 2023 01:46PM
Read and discuss Scandinavian literature in translation as part of the Nordic Book Club. Every month we select a book from a Nordic author—selections ...more
Middle East/North African Lit
— 2408 members
— last activity Jan 31, 2026 09:05AM
Current banner photo : Gaza at Palestine #Land day https://altahrir.wordpress.com/2020/02/04/land-in-eastern-gaza-declared-a-disaster-zone-due-to-isr ...more
Vlasta’s 2025 Year in Books
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