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1 " I’m talking about the lie that says you have to live a proper life, or else you’ll be ruined. I worked so hard to be respectable, because I was afraid of what would happen. "
― Banana Yoshimoto , Moshi moshi
2 " It takes time to get to know people, let alone to tell whether you like each other, so it really makes me wonder, you know, what you’re supposed to do if they just keep coming through like a revolving door, in one day and out another, and you don’t even have time to figure out who they are? "
3 " One of the things you lost sight of when you lived in the city was the sense of how much power an individual had. "
4 " I just want to rebel completely against everything in society that beat it into me that life would turn out okay if I only did the right things, "
5 " I’d assumed that once I’d passed the age of twenty, I’d gained the power to do everything alone. But I’d been wrong about that, and this just brought it home to me, again, that I still had a long way to go. "
6 " When we start something new, at first it is very muddy, and clouded. But soon, it becomes a clean stream, whose flows conducts itself quietly, through spontaneous movements. "
7 " How brutal life was! How fleshly, and mundane. I was reeling, from having understood it for the first time.What was lost would never return.In its place, I now knew the smell of Chazawa-Dori in the rain. "
8 " I was a firm believer in the idea that coincidences always came along at the right time. I felt there was some kind of reason for the way things happened as they did, like bubbles from my subconscious mind rising to the surface. "
9 " Shintani-kun often brought a book to read while he waited, but he'd close it as soon as his food arrived. I liked that too. As well as the way he always said Itadaki-masu, quietly, before he started eating. Maybe I was already in love. "
10 " Sul campo di battaglia della memoria giacevano le spoglie di tutto quanto si era piegato a forze invisibili, dei pensieri di ciò che era svanito lasciando soltanto le emozioni dietro di sè. L'avrei attraversato giorno dopo giorno, imprimendo le orme dei miei passi come si offrono fiori. "
11 " At the time, I was still so shrunken into myself I couldn't quite believe what was happening. I'd never dreamed that Mom and I could ever do anything as fun as gorging on an entire cake until our bellies ached. We weren't being hysterical, or depressed. We'd just thought of something nice to do, and done it together. That kind of thing had felt wrong in Meguro, but the new apartment somehow made it possible. "
12 " Rituals are more important than we think. Not for the dead, but I think it's the best way to help ourselves accept what happened, and draw a line under it. "
13 " When we start something new, at first it is very muddy, and clouded. “But soon, it becomes a clear stream, whose flow conducts itself quietly, through spontaneous movements. "
14 " If someone had asked me how I'd spent this period in my life, I'd have said I'd done nothing in particular. It had all felt like a dream. But I drew confidence and satisfaction from the fact that I had in fact achieved things, that there had been a through line. Even when I'd felt suffocated and short of breath with nowhere to go, I'd done what I could, and it had all linked up and moved forward, and before I knew it I was coming up for breath somewhere where I was no longer weighed down. "
15 " We’d given up thinking about things as though we understood them, or even as though we could, and committed to living our days like a continuous length of thread we were each spinning. "
16 " but life went on, even at times like this, and it was surprising how easy it was to keep going as though nothing had changed. i found it strange that i could walk down the street and appear normal, just like anyone else. that i could be in complete turmoil inside, and yet my reflection in a shop window could look the same as it ever had. "
17 " Peace and acceptance suddenly fell into my hands. Like a patch of rich soil that had soaked up plenty of sun mounding gently up into an empty space, I felt something akin to an answer settle in me. "
18 " That's because you think about everything in words ... You can go around and around the same question all you like, and never find an answer. I know that's how you cope, how you get through time, so I've never thought it was immature, or unhelpful. But there's another way of doing it: to sit with an empty space, and just look at it, without thinking anything, just enduring. Some people can do that. "
19 " In un certo senso non saremmo mai più tornate come prima, qualsiasi cosa avessimo fatto, anche provando a vivere lì. Era una consapevolezza che potevamo solo accettare. Se qualche volta ci capitava di trascorrere del tempo serenamente, come se avessimo dimenticato ogni cosa, in fondo restava sempre quell’ombra. Ormai avevamo capito - e faceva male - che vivere significava procedere portandosi tutto dentro. Anche dopo aver sofferto, dopo avere versato lacrime come sangue, cariche di dolore, non provavamo alcun sollievo. Semplicemente sopportavamo, fingendo che tutto andasse bene. "
20 " There’s someone I might be getting closer to, that’s all. But it’s not quite coming together yet. I think I’m not ready, either,” I said. “Have you got ED?” she said. “Um, no, for a number of different reasons,” I said, “but it might be something similar. "
