1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Ruth Ozeki

Ruth Ozeki Quotes

Ruth Ozeki is an American-Canadian author, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. Her books and films, including the novels My Year of Meats , All Over Creation , and A Tale for the Time Being , seek to integrate personal narrative and social issues, and deal with themes relating to science, technology, environmental politics, race, religion, war and global popular culture. Her novels have been translated into over thirty languages. She is a Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College.

✵ 12. March 1956  •  Other names روث اوزکی, ルース・オゼキ, 尾關露絲
Ruth Ozeki photo

Works

A Tale for the Time Being
Ruth Ozeki: 20 quotes3 likes

Famous Ruth Ozeki Quotes

“But memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“Do all kids have to worry about their parents’ mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it’s the other way around.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren't tears. She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“Information is a lot like water; it's hard to hold on to, and hard to keep from leaking away.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“An unfinished book. left unattended, turns feral, and she would need all her focus, will and ruthless determination to tame it again.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth Ozeki Quotes about time

“And if you decide not to read anymore, hey, no problem, because you're not the one I was waiting for anyway. But if you decide to read on, then guess what? You're my kind of time being and together we'll make magic!”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“What if I travel so far away in my dreams that I can't get back in time to wake up?”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you. A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“All through my childhood, I wanted to be a novelist. I stopped writing at various points because I would get frustrated because there were things I didn’t know how to do. I didn’t know how to move a story through time. Pacing. My character would enter a room and need to get across the room to the action, and I would walk her ploddingly across the room. I didn’t know how to move the plot along quickly and efficiently through time…”

Ruth Ozeki

On her initial struggles to become a novelist in “Ruth Ozeki: Neither here nor there” https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/author-interviews/ruth-ozeki-neither/ in The Writer (2017 Feb 24)

Ruth Ozeki Quotes about life

“I believe it doesn't matter what it is, as long as you can find something concrete to keep you busy while you are living your meaningless life.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“Life is fleeting. Don't waste a single moment of your precious life. Wake up now! And now! And now!”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“She smiled. “Life is full of stories. Or maybe life is only stories. Good night, my dear Nao.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth Ozeki Quotes

“Print is predictable and impersonal, conveying information in a mechanical transaction with the reader’s eye. Handwriting, by contrast, resists the eye, reveals its meaning slowly, and is as intimate as skin.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“That's what it feels like when I write, like I have this beautiful world in my head, but when I try to remember it in order to write it down, I change it, and I can't ever get it back.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“The past is weird. I mean, does it really exist? It feels like it exists, but where is it? And if it did exists, but doesn’t now, then where did it go?”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“No matter how much bullying they inflict on my body, as long as I have this hope, I can endure any pain.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“Assumptions and expectations will kill any relationship, so let’s you and me not go there, okay?”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“The important thing was that we were being polite and not saying all the things that were making us unhappy, which was the only way we knew how to love each other.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Similar authors

Frank Herbert photo
Frank Herbert158
American writer None
William Saroyan photo
William Saroyan190
American writer None
Ray Bradbury photo
Ray Bradbury401
American writer None
William Faulkner photo
William Faulkner214
American writer None
Julio Cortázar photo
Julio Cortázar29
Argentinian writer None
David Foster Wallace photo
David Foster Wallace185
American fiction writer and essayist None
Pearl S. Buck photo
Pearl S. Buck95
American writer None
Charles Bukowski photo
Charles Bukowski555
American writer None
Joseph Campbell photo
Joseph Campbell140
American mythologist, writer and lecturer None
Dale Carnegie photo
Dale Carnegie98
American writer and lecturer None