Crystal

“The whole damn school…
Every last student…
They deify you too much...

But they’ve closed off every road except athletics, so you don’t see anything else.
You don’t have a clue what’s going on.

You have like, two…
Maybe three facial expressions, tops…
But every flaw and failings in the book.

Your parents…
The people around you…
Everyone else in the world…
They might expect big things of you…

But not me.

I’ll make fun of you, smirk to myself…
And you treat you like anyone else.

Who gives a shit whether you succeed in athletics or quit?
What difference does it make?

Someone has to make you understand that you’re just like everyone else…
And I’m that someone.”
― Gaku Kuze, うらみちお兄さん 5

“And thus as one storm begins to ravage the Virginias, another one just as easily dissipates and vanishes in a flood of bad jokes and old stories.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“At first glance, it seems hard to believe these two men are even related let alone brothers. Tom is content if there happens to be a game on and a soft place from which to watch it. Navidson works out every day, devours volumes of esoteric criticism, and constantly attaches the world around him to one thing: photography. Tom gets by, Navidson succeeds. Tom just wants to be, Navidson must become. And yet despite such obvious differences, anyone who looks past Tom's wide grin and considers his eyes will find surprisingly deep pools of sorrow. Which is how we know they are brothers, because like Tom, Navidson's eyes share the same water.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves