Ruth Ozeki citations

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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!”

“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.”

“For the time being
Words scatter
Are they fallen leaves?”

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

“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?”

“For the time being, the entire earth and the boundless sky.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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…”