Beesbuzz333

“How did I feel about Kojima? How come I never spoke to her at school or even attempted eye contact? Sure, I was scared of Ninomiya, but what exactly made me scared? Was I afraid of getting hurt? If that was it, if that was what was haunting me, why couldn’t I stand up to him? What does it mean to be hurt? When they bullied me and beat me up, why couldn’t I do anything but obey them? What does it mean to obey? Why was I scared? Why? What does it mean to be scared?”
― Mieko Kawakami, Heaven

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“As I passed below the haloes of the green and red traffic signals, I was taken by this strange view of the evening, the city streets full of people— people waiting, the people they were waiting for, people out to eat together, people going somewhere together, people heading home together. I allowed my thoughts to settle on the brightness filling their hearts and lungs, squinting as I walked along and counted all the players of this game I would never play.”
― Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

“Then it hit me: dying is just like sleeping. You only know you’re sleeping when you wake up the next day, but if morning never comes, you sleep forever. That must be what death is like. When someone dies, they don’t even know they’re dead. Because they never see it happen, nobody ever really dies. This hit me like a sucker punch.”
― Mieko Kawakami, Heaven