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“All I want is for someone to understand me before I die. With death staring me in the face, I finally understand the reason novelists write books: before they die they want somebody, somewhere, to understand them.”
― Natsuo Kirino, Real World

“Listen, if there’s a hell, we’re in it. And if there’s a heaven, we’re already there. This is it.”
― Mieko Kawakami

“When you were a kid, people probably told you that you would go to hell if you were bad, right? Well, guess what. There’s no hell. It’s all made up. They made it up. Nothing had any meaning, so they had to make some. The weak can't handle reality. They can't deal with the pain or sadness, let alone the obvious fact that nothing has any meaning.”
― Mieko Kawakami, Heaven

“To tell the truth, when I first came to the city, I was afraid to board a streetcar because of the conductor; I was afraid to enter the Kabuki Theatre for fear of the usherettes standing along the sides of the red-carpeted staircase at the main entrance; I was afraid to go into a restaurant because I was intimidated by the waiters furtively hovering behind me waiting for my plate to be emptied.”
― Osamu Dazai