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Convenience Store Woman QUOTES

Convenience Store Woman QUOTES

1 " I couldn't stop hearing the store telling me the way it wanted to be, what it needed. It was all flowing into me. It wasn't me speaking. It was the store. I was just channeling its revelations from on high. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

2 " I caught sight of myself reflected in the window of the convenience store I'd just come out of. My hands, my feet—they existed only for the store! For the first time, I could think of the me in the window as a being with meaning.

"Irasshaimasé! "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

3 " People who are considered normal enjoy putting those who aren't on trial, you know. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

4 " The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of.

So that’s why I need to be cured. Unless I’m cured, normal people will expurgate me. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

5 " Anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

6 " As we were chatting in the back room, her gaze suddenly fell on the ballet flats I was wearing. "Oh, those shoes are from that shop in Omotesando, aren't they? I like that place too. I have some boots from there." In the back room she speaks in a languid drawl, the end of her words slightly drawn out. I bought these flats after checking the brand name of the shoes she wears for work while she was in the toilet.

"Oh really? Wait, do you mean those dark blue ones you wore to the shop before? Those were cute!" I answered, copying Sugawara's speech pattern but using a slightly more adult tone. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

7 " In a short-staffed convenience store, a store worker can sometimes be highly appreciated just by existing, by virtue of not rocking the boat. I’m not particularly brilliant compared to Mrs. Izumi and Sugawara, but I’m second to none in terms of never being late or taking days off. I just come in every day without fail, and because of that I’m accepted as a well-functioning part of the store. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

8 " When you do physical labor, you end up being no longer useful when your physical condition deteriorates. However hard I work, however dependable I am, when my body grows old then no doubt I too will be a worn-out part, ready to be replaced, no longer of any use to the convenience store. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

9 " I wished I was back in the convenience store where I was valued as a working member of staff and things weren’t as complicated as this. Once we donned our uniforms, we were all equals regardless of gender, age, or nationality— all simply store workers. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

10 " If it had been that simple all along, I thought, I wish she'd given me clear instructions before, then I wouldn't have had to go to such lengths to find out how to be normal. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

11 " Look, I know it's none of my business, but you should really either get a job or get married, one or the other. I mean, seriously. Or better still, you should do both. Otherwise you're going to end up starving to death sometime, you know. You're really living on the edge. (138) "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

12 " Look, I know it's none of my business, but you should really either get a job or get married, one or the other. I mean, seriously. Or better still, you should do both. Otherwise you're going to end up starving to death sometime, you. You're really living on the edge. (138) "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

13 " Our society doesn't allow any foreign objects. I've always suffered because of that," Shiraha said, drinking jasmine tea made with a teabag from the drink bar. I was the one who had gotten the jasmine tea for him since he didn't make any move to get anything for himself. He just sat in silence, and when I placed it in front of him he started drinking it without even saying thank you.

"Everyone has to toe the line. Why am I still doing casual work even though I'm in my mid-thirties? Why haven't I ever had a girlfriend? The assholes don't even bat an eyelid when they ask whether I've ever had sex or not. And then they laugh and tell me not to include prostitutes in the count. I don't make trouble for anyone. But they all seem to think nothing of raping me, just because I'm in the minority."

I considered him one step short of being a sex offender. But here he was casually likening his own suffering to sexual assault, without sparing a thought for all the trouble he'd caused for women store workers and customers.

He seemed to have this odd circuitry in his mind that allowed him to see himself only as the victim, and never the perpetrator, I thought was I watched him.

"Really," I said, even wondering whether he made a habit of being self-pitying. "That must be hard. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

14 " What can a corporate slave loser like him do? I haven't done anything wrong. If I take a fancy to a certain woman, then I'll make her mine. Hasn't that always been the tradition between men and women, handed down since ancient times?"

"Shiraha, you said before that the strongest men get the women, didn't you? So you're contradicting yourself."

"True. I'm not working at the moment, but I've got a vision. Once I start my business, I'll have women flocking to me."

"Well then, wouldn't the proper way be for you to do that first? Then you'd be able to choose from all those women running after you."

Shiraha looked down awkwardly. "Anyway, nothing's changed since the Stone Age. It's just that nobody realizes that. In the final analysis, we're all animals," he said, going off on a tangent. "If you ask me, this is a dysfunctional society. And since it's defective, I'm treated unfairly."

I thought he was probably right about that, and I couldn't imagine what a functioning society would be like. I was beginning to lose track of what society actually was. I even had a feeling it was all an illusion. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

15 " En el interior de aquel nítido acuario, la tienda seguía funcionando como un mecanismo automático. Al visualizar aquel escenario, los sonidos de la tienda resurgían dentro de mis tímpanos, me tranquilizaban y me ayudaban a conciliar el sueño. Por la mañana volvía a convertirme en una dependienta, un engranaje de la sociedad. Aquel trabajo era lo único que me permitía ser una persona normal. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

16 " El mundo normal es un lugar mu exigente donde los cuerpos extraños son eliminados en silencio. Las personas inmaduras son expulsadas. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

17 " La gente se cree con derecho a escarbar en aquello que considera raro hasta dar con una explicación. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

18 " Market, zorla normalleştirilen bir yer. Sen de çok geçmeden kalıba girersin. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

19 " This society hasn't changed one bit. People who don't fit into the village are expelled: men who don't hunt, women who don't give birth to children. For all we talk about modern society and individualism, anyone who doesn't try to fit in can expect to be meddled with, coerced, and ultimately banished from the village. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman

20 " She's far happier thinking her sister is normal, even if she has a lot of problems, than she is having an abnormal sister for whom everything is fine. "

― Sayaka Murata , Convenience Store Woman