rita

“There's a limit to how well we know ourselves. We don't know what we look like to others, and we can't know our own future, and we can't know what our own death will be like. And that's why we need cats. It's just like my mother said. Cats don't need us. It's human beings who need cats.”
― Genki Kawamura, If Cats Disappeared from the World

“Cats and humans have been partners for over ten thousand years. And what you realize when you've lived with a cat for a long time is that we may think we own them, but that's not the way it is. They simply allow us the pleasure of their company.”
― Genki Kawamura, 世界から猫が消えたなら [Sekai kara Neko ga Kietanara]

“On the one hand, they say that only humans have a concept of death. Cats don't see it coming. It doesn't cause them fear and anxiety like it does humans. And then humans end up keeping cats as pets, despite our angst over mortality, even though we know that the cat will die long before we do, causing the owner untold grief.”
― Genki Kawamura, If Cats Disappeared from the World

“To live imeans: to cry and shout, to love, to do silly things, to feel sadness and joy, to even experience horrible, frightening things... and to laugh. Beautiful songs, beautiful scenery, feeling nauseous, people singing, planes flying across the sky, the thundering hooves of horses, mouth-watering pancakes, the endless darkness of space, cowboys firing their pistols at dawn...”
― Genki Kawamura, If Cats Disappeared from the World