Nicole

“Ayumi had a great emptiness inside her, like a desert at the edge of the earth. You could try watering it all you wanted, but everything would be sucked down to the bottom of the world, leaving no trace of moisture. No life could take route there. Not even birds would fly over it. What had created such a wasteland inside Ayumi, only she herself knew. No, maybe not even Ayumi knew the true cause. But one of the biggest factors had to be twisted sexual desires that men around Ayumi had forced upon her.
As if to build a fence around the fatal emptiness inside her, she had to create the sunny personality that she became.
But if you peeled away the ornamental egos that she had built, there was only an abyss of nothingness and the intense thirst that came with it.
Though she tried to forget it, the nothingness would visit her periodically on a lonely rainy afternoon, or at dawn when she woke from a nightmare.
What she needed at such times was to be held by someone, anyone.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Sometimes you are aware when your great moments are happening, and sometimes they rise from the past. Perhaps it's the same with people.”
― James Salter, Burning the Days: Recollection

“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.”
― José Ortega y Gasset