Ben

“Did you ever have someone like that, someone that you loved in vain when you were younger? Did you ever feel something like my shame? I always assumed that you must have, that you can’t possibly have gone through life as carelessly as you made out. But now I begin to think that not everyone suffers in the same way; that not everyone, in fact, suffers. Not from the same things, at any rate. And in a way this is what made us possible, you and me.”
― Tomasz Jedrowski, Swimming in the Dark

“carried my difference, my shame, on the inside. It wasn’t visible—not to everyone straightaway, at least—but it was there, and it was a danger.”
― Tomasz Jedrowski, Swimming in the Dark

“maybe it takes a long time to figure out what you’re truly searching for. Maybe you spend your whole life just to figure out a small part of it.”
― Satoshi Yagisawa, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop