You're too radiant! Don't come in here, please!
The stars will switch off!

Sunako at Kyouhei, Volume 22 ~ Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge

When I hate someone from the first impression, I always continue to hate them. 

Because the people I hate continue to do things that I hate. 

I hated you since the moment I saw you, and predictably you did something I hated the most. 

I'm sure you'll continue to do things that I hate and that I'll continue to hate you!

Hwang Tae Kyung ~ You're Beautiful

Isn't it fine?
Being worried about the gap between your real self and your ideal self?
That is also a privilege of youth.

Kawasaki ~ Buzzer Beat

Seems like he isn't listening, but he hears everything he needs.

Shin Woo about Hwang Tae Kyung ~ You're Beautiful

You're not even worth an orange peel. you punk!

Jeremy ~ You're Beautiful

If you don't look into mirrors you cant see your face.
If you don't see your face you wont need to compare it with others.
It is a happy life indeed~

Nakahara Sunako ~ Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge

If you're suffering that much in order to become more attractive...
It's better to throw away any desire to exist as a woman.

Nakahara Sunako ~ Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge

To Risk

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.
The pessimist complains about the wind;The optimist expects it to change;
And the realist adjusts the sails.

~William Arthur Ward

Judging oneself to be inferior to other people was one of the worst acts of pride he knew, because it was the most destructive way of being different.

Brida ~ Paulo Coelho

Aside

Measure me in metered lines
And one decisive stare
The time it takes to get from here to there
My ribs that show through t-shirts
And these shoes I got for free
I'm unconsoled
I'm lonely
I am so much better than I used to be.

Terrified of telephones
And shopping malls and knives
Drowning in the pools of other lives
Rely a bit too heavily
On alcohol and irony
Get clobbered on by courtesy
In love with love and lousy poetry

And I'm leaning on this broken fence
Between past and present tense
And I'm losing all those stupid games
That I swore I'd never play
But it almost feels okay

Circumnavigate this body
Of wonder and uncertainty
Armed with every precious failure
And amateur cartography
I'm breathing deep before
I spread those maps out on my bedroom floor

And I'm leaning on this broken fence
Between past and present tense
And I'm losing all those stupid games
That I swore I'd never play
But it feels okay
And I'm leaving with goodbye
And I'm losing but I'll try
With the last ways left
To remember sing
My imperfect offering

~ The Weakerthans

Personally, I like a chocolate-colored sky.

Death, The Book Thief ~ Markus Zusak

Ryuuzaki: Hey sensei. Whom did you kill?
That's the reason for Sawamura's useless good mood, isn't it?

Whom did you murder?

Aoi: Kumakiri Masaru.

Ryuuzaki: Were you given orders by Sawamura?

Aoi: I am not wrong. With my powers I protected someone. I saved a life.

Ryuuzaki: By killing Kumakiri, your student's life was saved? Aren't you a proactive teacher.

If you were going to kill him, you should have done so earlier anyway. 

Then you could have ended it without that unnecessary sacrifice.

Saving lives. Protecting people.

Is that what you mean by using your power correctly?

If there is someone you really want to protect, you should make that person stronger.

So that even if you are not around, he can continue living on his own.

That's what it truly means to protect.

[Telephone Conversation]
 Orthros no Inu

Tell me. How can you people, so easily, betray those dearest to you? 

Ryuuzaki Shinji ~ Orthros no Inu

Ryuuzaki: What a view. Looking down at people, makes me feel like we've become a Gods.

Although, you'd be the Grim Reaper.

What did you want, Reaper? Did you come to me for something?

Aoi: What about you? You came looking for me.

Ryuuzaki: I was free. So I thought about asking you out to play.

Orthros no Inu

If I don't heal them, will it become so that I killed them?

Even if you stabbed them, if I don't heal them, does that make me the murderer?

Ryuuzaki Shinji ~ Orthros no Inu

Aoi Ryosuke: Just what is your motive? Money? 
Or are you just having fun playing with people's lives?

Ryuuzaki Shinji: Who knows, eh?

Orthros no Inu

If humans too, were able to possess God's powers, would they be able to change the world?

There is just one obstacle.

If you want to stand shoulder to shoulder with God, there is only one possible way.

Just like God, you have to become Heartless.

Ryuuzaki Shinji ~ Orthros no Inu

If I was able to change the world, will I be forgiven for it, only as a God?

Ryuuzaki Shinji ~ Orthros no Inu

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

Johnathan Swift

Reputation is an idle, and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

Iago, Act 2, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

The Inevitable is what will seem to happen to you purely by chance.

The Real is what will strike you as really absurd.

Unless you are certain you are dreaming, it is certainly a dream of your own.

Unless you exclaim - 'There must be some mistake' - you must be mistaken.

An Actor, Act One, Stuff Happens ~ David Hare

Things

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5.a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.

~ Fleur Adcock

Otomo: You, get money from somewhere and buy some eyes so you can understand men!
Hasegawa: They don't sell those anywhere!
Otomo: I guess they don't... *Smirk*

Episode 4 ~ Mop Girl

Otomo: Seems to me, friendship between women is something like a condom.

Hasegawa: Huh?

Otomo: They keep telling you it's thin, it's thin, but when you do buy it and look it it's quite thick, and then when you try and use it, it tears easily.

In the end it can't meet up to standards.

Episode 3 ~ Mop Girl

Hasegawa: Help me! Please I beg of you!

Unless we stop it Jounouji Ayano will be killed!

Otomo: Are you alright in the head?

Hasegawa: It's from my dead... dead... grandmother who has become part of the thousand winds!

She appeared to me in a dream and told me!

Otomo: Hah? If you try to claim as being spiritual you won't be popular!

Hasegawa: I know about the girl you're going to meet now!

Otomo: Tch. Don't tell lies. Her and I are in a Secret Love.

Hasegawa: So, if I tell you her name you'll help me?

Otomo: Fine.

Hasegawa: The girl's name is... Josephine!
Otomo: *shocked* Eh?

Hasegawa: Fhu fhu fhuu~ *biig smile* Well, Let's go!

Otomo: You can't be right! I don't have time to play with you, idiot! *walking away*

Hasegawa: Granny... may a curse befall people who have bad hearts. *praying to the heavens* 

How pitiful...

*pretending to be suprised*

HECTOPASCAL is!

Otomo: If you're going to say that it's ECTOPLASM! Stop being that creepy!

Episode 2 ~ Mop Girl

Hasegawa: *in a very passionate speech* To kill the one you love is not love!

It's just being an... ECOLOGIST!

Otomo: If you are going to say that...it's an EGOTIST!

Episode 2 ~ Mop Girl

Did you know?

About the duck-billed platypus and the spiny ant-eater?

It's said that they are considered strange.

They are mammals, yet they hatch from eggs.

But you know? They don't think they are the least bit strange.

Humans are the only ones who keep saying that they are strange.

It's humans who selfishly decided to call them strange.

For the duck-billed platypus and the spiny ant-eater, it's just annoying.

After all, they are trying their best to live.

You can't have your worth weighed through others eyes!

All you have to do is live your life to the fullest, right?

Sensei, Episode 1 ~ Mop Girl

'You don't care now, do you? Not really care?
You must write your quota of pages tonight and the rest of us must shift as we can. 
Well, we'll shift. I'd respect you more - oh yes, and envy you less - if you did care.'

'I care,' said Henry.

'You don't know what it means,' said Oliver briskly, turning his hands meditatively before the flames.
He said, 'People like me have very complicated feelings about people like you.
I'm aware that you don't really care whether I tell you about them or not - 
you'd probably rather I didn't. 
But I seem to share what's apparently a common urge to explain everything to you - to drop all my little worries and stoppages into the well of your considered silence. 
Perhaps because one feels that since the worries don't worry you,
and the stoppages don't stop you, you've got time to make something of them, 
whilst one gets on with the struggling.
Which I resent; but still, I talk.'

The Shadow of the Sun ~ A.S.Byatt

He had a vision of himself in his study, a dedicated and misguided Casaubon, and saw the precession of lives that he told himself his touch had withered - Caroline whom he had allowed to think that teacups - for him - were enough; Marget, whom he had thought arrogantly to solve by re-arranging on paper; Anna, who had gone pale in his shadow, and poked blindly about in no direction, a plant in a cellar.

The Shadow of the Sun ~ A.S.Byatt

Part of the trouble was that he was so upset that he had quite forgotten what he had been writing, and could not have summoned life or concentration enough to plan another paragraph; he saw his work now as he occasionally saw a novel the moment he had finished it - a grotesque parody of life, a string of words, selecting and obscuring facts to suit himself. And dead, dead, dead.

The Shadow of the Sun ~ A.S.Byatt

Goodnight & Go

Say goodnight and go

Skipping beats
Blushing cheeks
I am struggling
Daydreaming
Bed scenes in
The corner cafe
And then I'm left in bits
Recovering tectonic
Tremblings
You get me every time

Why'd ya have to be so cute
It's impossible to ignore you
Must you make me laugh so much
It's bad enough we get along so well
Say goodnight and go

Follow you home
You've got your headphones on
And you're dancing
Got lucky
Beautiful shot
You're taking everything off
Watch the curtains wide open
And you're following the same routine
Flicking through the TV
Relaxed and reclining
And you think you're alone

Oh, why'd ya have to be so cute
It's impossible to ignore you
Must you make me laugh so much
It's bad enough we get along so well
Say goodnight and go

One of these days
You'll miss your train
And come stay with me
(It's always say goodnight and go)
We'll have drinks
And talk about things and
Any excuse to stay awake with you
You'd sleep here
I'd sleep there
But then the heating may be down again
At my convenience
We'd be good
We'd be great together

Go...

Why'd ya have to be so cute
It's impossible to ignore you
Must you make me laugh so much
It's bad enough we get along so well
Say goodnight and go

Why's it always always
Goodnight and go
Oh, darling not again
Goodnight and
Go...

~ Imogen Heap

"No, of course you don't. You can't. I out to have seen that at first. You can't even begin to listen. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know." She hesitated, and then went on, driven. "But I don't want nothing. I want something, I want it badly. But I don't know what it is."

Oliver and Anna, The Shadow of the Sun ~ A.S.Byatt

Her view of love was still through the small end of the telescope; to be beautiful, it must be hopeless; if it looked, as Michael had, as though it might have been anything else, she took care to complicate it until it was safely impossible and remote again.

The Shadow of the Sun ~ A.S.Byatt

If I went away and lived my own life, she thought, I might manage to be everything I am, or have to be - and then I might see and not only remember having seen.

The Shadow of the Sun ~ A.S.Byatt

It had been an essential part of her picture that Michael should have been carefree, self-assured, even slightly cruel; he was easiest to admire like that. She did not quite know what to do with his anxiety; it was encouraging, but it diminished him in some way.

The Shadow of the Sun ~ A.S.Byatt

"She's in love."

"Happily?"

"Naturally not."

Henry and Oliver about Anna, The Shadow of the Sun ~ A.S.Byatt

I Get a Kick Out of You

I get no kick from Champagne;
Mere alcohol
Doesn't thrill me at all,
So tell me why should it be true
That I get a kick out of you.

Some get a kick from cocaine;
I'm sure that if
I took even one sniff
That would bore me terrifically too.

Yet I get a kick out of you.

I get a kick every time I see you standing there before me -
I get a kick though it's patently clear that you obviously don't adore me.

I get no kick in a plane;
Flying too high
With some bird in the sky
Is my idea of nothing to do.

Yet I get a kick out of you.

~ Cole Porter

We measure time according to the movement of countless suns; and they measure time by little machines in their little pockets.
Now tell me, how could we ever meet at the same place and the same time?

Sand and Foam ~ Kahlil Gibran

A root is a flower that disdains fame.

Sand and Foam ~ Kahlil Gibran

She had been a formidable academic in her day, cleverer, people said, than her husband, her sharp tongue venomous in his defense. After her marriage she taught and published less, talent and personality diminished by the appalling subservience of love.

The Children of Men ~ P.D. James

Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let your self feel.

The Children of Men ~ P.D. James

I couldn't then say what for nearly forty years I have known to be true.
I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything.

The Children of Men ~ P.D. James

I didn't love her but I did steal for her. I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.

The Children of Men ~ P.D. James

Charm is often despised but I can never see why.
No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking.
Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.

The Children of Men ~ P.D. James

If from infancy you treat children as gods they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.

The Children of Men ~ P.D. James

Pleasure need not be less keen because there will be centuries of springs to come, their blossom unseen by human eyes, the walls will crumble, the trees die and rot, the gardens revert to weeds and grass because all beauty will outlive the human intelligence, which records, enjoys and celebrates it.
I tell myself this, but do I believe it when pleasure comes so rarely and, when it does, is so indistinguishable from pain?

The Children of Men ~ P.D. James

Influence was no substitute for power.

The Children of Men ~ P.D. James

二人の涙雨

Futari no Namida Ame
Our Tears of Rain

In the brightly lit city, while watching the lovers walk,
Shoulders brushing together so that their footsteps match
Unwittingly, I hurriedly moved away from you
Without saying a word against me, you lowered your eyes.

I allowed myself to be so spoiled by your continuous warmth
That I didn't even realize your loneliness.

From the skies, it's a rain of tears, the sadness keeps on piling up
"I can't walk anymore than this," you say as if your heart can't take it anymore.

Pretending I was wiping away the rain, I looked at you sideways
Suddenly I felt as if you were turning away from me.
No matter when, you were always smilingly supporting me.
and I was the one who had always turned away.

Taking hold of your hand, even if I embrace you strongly
I certainly won't be able to reach your heart.

From the skies, it's a rain of tears, the regret keeps on piling up
Uncontrollably falling, as if to hide my weaknesses.

From the skies, it's a rain of tears, the sadness keeps on piling up
"I can't walk anymore than this," you whisper.
From the skies, it's a rain of tears, our hearts are the same
'We can no longer go back to the past,' as if saying goodbye softly.

~ Kanjani∞ [Zukkoke Daidassou]

If you refuse to save even one life, how can you talk about bringing salvation to all of humanity?

Takagi Fujimaru, Episode 6 ~ Bloody Monday

We need our snobberies; equality is a political theory not a practical policy.

The Children of Men ~ P.D. James

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one, not easily jealous, but being wrought
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe

Othello, Act 5, Scene 2, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

OTHELLO: She's like a liar gone to burning hell,
'Twas I that killed her.
EMILIA: O the more angel she,
And you the blacker devil.
OTHELLO: She turned to folly; and she was a whore.
EMILIA: Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.
OTHELLO: She was false as water.
EMILIA: Thou art rash as fire, to say
That she was false. O she was heavenly true.

Act 5, Scene 2, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

They are not jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they're are jealous. It is a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.

Emilia, Act 3, Scene 4, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

I should be wise, for honesty's a fool,
and loses what it works for.

Iago, Act 3, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

I had been happy, if the general camp,
Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
So I had nothing known.

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

O beware my lord of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss
Who certain of his fate loves not his wronger,
But O, what damned minutes tells he o'ver
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet fondly loves.

Iago, Act 3, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

Men should be what they seem;
Or those that be not, would they might seem none.

Iago, Act 3, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

The Mutes

Those groans men use
passing a woman on the street
or on the steps of the subway

to tell her she is a female
and their flesh knows it,

are they a sort of tune,
an ugly enough song, sung
by a bird with a slit tongue

but meant for music?

Or are they the muffled roaring
of deafmutes trapped in a building that is
slowly filling with smoke?

Perhaps both.

Such men most often
look as if groan were all they could do,
yet a woman, in spite of herself,

knows it's a tribute:
if she were lacking all grace
they'd pass her in silence:

so it's not only to say she's
a warm hole. It's a word

in grief-language, nothing to do with
primitive, not an ur-language;
language stricken, sickened, cast down

in decrepitude. She wants to
throw the tribute away, dis-
gusted, and can't,

it goes on buzzing in her ear,
it changes the pace of her walk,
the torn posters in echoing corridors

spell it out, it
quakes and gnashes as the train comes in.
Her pulse sullenly

had picked up speed,
but the cars slow down and
jar to a stop while her understanding

keeps on translating:
'Life after life after life goes by

without poetry,
without seemliness,
without love.'

~Denise Levertov

"Thinking I'm a moron gives people something to feel smug about," Charles Wallace said. "Why should I disillusion them?"

A Wrinkle in Time ~ Madeleine L'Engle

I really must learn to read, except I'm afraid it will make it awfully hard for me in school next year if I already know things. I think it will be better if people go on thinking I'm not very bright.
They won't hate me quite as much.

Charles Wallace, A Wrinkle in Time ~ Madeleine L'Engle

We usually remember the past with the title, 'history'. But was there ever a time that began as 'history' from the start? All that remains is the collective time of the people. They sometimes get tangled up together, or go their separate ways until time is collected like a giant ball of yarn. This seemingly coincidental encounter between Gu Ja Myeong and Baek Mae, became a thread in time called history, tangled up in a branch called Iljimae.

~Dolanon Iljimae

If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old Persian saying, "There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman."

Sherlock Holmes, A Case of Identity, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

One Day, Robots Will Cry

This won't hurt more than a pinch
So just pour a drink, let's talk it over
I'm back after all these years
Don't be afraid my dear, now I'm older

Cause people change, can't you see my eyes?
Are they not the same after the lies?
I know I'm like a machine, but I still have dreams
I know one day we will..

Sleep for days (come over, come over)
I won't make the same mistakes (come over, come over)
I'm dying not to hurt you
In our dreams, we can be complete again

When you were young, you kept a list
Of the things you'd miss, as you got older
I've known you, in every life I've lived
Yeah, I'm still a kid, even though I'm colder

When you were a child, I was lost in the wild
But you built a home for me in the road
I was born in the cold, turn up the heat
I know one day we will..

Sleep for days (come over, come over)
I won't make the same mistakes (come over, come over)
I'm dying not to hurt you
In our dreams, we can be complete
If we go to sleep, we can wake up home again
Come on over again

[...]

~ Cobra Starship

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.
We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence.
If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city,
gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on,
the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events,
working through generations, and leading to the most Outre results,
it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions
most stale and unprofitable.

Sherlock Holmes, A Case of Identity, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman.
I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name.
In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex.
It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind.

Opening lines, A Scandal in Bohemia, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Perdition catch my soul.
But I do love thee; and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

One day, out of the blue, she called home and told her husband, "You will be receiving the necessary papers for divorce. Please sign, seal, and send back to me." Would she care to explain, her husband asked, what was the reason? "I've lost all love for you - in any way, shape, or form." Oh? said her husband. Was there no room for discussion? "Sorry, none, absolutely none."

Lederhosen ~ Haruki Murakami

Until now I had imagined sleep as a kind of model for death.
I had imagined death as an extension of sleep.
A sleep devoid of all consciousness.
Eternal rest.
A total blackout.

But now I wondered if I had been wrong.
Perhaps death was a state entirely unlike sleep, something that belonged to a different category altogether - like the deep, endless, wakeful darkness I was seeing now.

No, that would be too terrible.
If the state of death was not to be a rest for us, then what was going to redeem this imperfect life of ours, so fraught with exhaustion?
Finally, though, no one knows what death is. Who has ever truly seen it?
No one.
Except those who are dead. No one living knows what death is like.
They can only guess.
And the best guess is still a guess.
Maybe death is a kind of rest, but reasoning can't tell us that.
The only way to find out what death is to die.
Death can be anything at all.

Sleep ~ Haruki Murakami

A photo says, 'you were happy, and I wanted to catch that.' A photo says, 'you were so important to me that I put down everything else to come watch.'

Anna ~ My Sister's Keeper

It's all I can do not to turn around and walk out the door, pretend I've come by mistake. The only thing that keeps me steady is knowing that I'm not the first person to stand in front of this counter holding the one item in the world I never thought I'ld part with.

Anna ~ My sister's keeper

Moon River

Moon River, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you're going I'm going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end--
waiting 'round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.

~ Johnny Mercer (Lyricist)

I love my son, no question.
But I sensed that someday I would no longer be able to love this boy with the same intensity.
Not a very maternal thought.
Most mothers never have thoughts like that.
But as I stood there looking at him asleep, I knew with absolute certainty that one day I would come to despise him.

The thought made me terribly sad.

Sleep ~ Haruki Murakami

I went back to the sofa and started reading the rest of Anna Karenina.
Until that reading, I hadn't realized how little I remembered of what goes on in the book.
I recognized virtually nothing - the characters, the scenes, nothing.
I might as well have been reading a whole new book.
How strange.
I must have been deeply moved at the time I first read it, but now there was nothing left.
Without my noticing, the memories of all the shuddering, soaring emotions had slipped away and vanished.

What, then, of the enormous fund of time I had consumed back then reading books?
What had all that meant?

Sleep ~ Haruki Murakami

There's just one thing I'd like to get clear, though. Which is that I do not lust after you sexually as a woman. Like I told you, I am angry at the fact that I am only myself and nothing else. Being a solitary entity is dreadfully depressing. Hence I do not seek to sleep with you, a solitary individual.

If, however, you were to divide to two, and I split into two as well, and we four all shared the same bed together, wouldn't that be something! Don't you think?

The Kangaroo Communique' ~ Haruki Murakami

Shall I put it on the line?

I want to be able to be in two places at once.
That is my one and only wish. Other than that, there's not a single thing I desire.

Yet being who and what I am, my singularity hampers this desire of mine.
An unhappy lot, don't you think? My wish, if anything, is rather unassuming.
I don't want to be the ruler of the world, nor do I want to be an artist of genius.
I merely want to exist in two places simultaneously.
Got it? Not three, not four, only two.
I want to be roller-skating while I'm listening to an orchestra at a concert hall.
I want to be a McDonald's Quarter Pounder and still be a clerk in the product-control section of the department store.
I want to sleep with you and be sleeping with my girlfriend all the while.
I want to lead a general existence and yet be a distinct, separate entity.

The Kangaroo Communique' ~ Haruki Murakami

Now, what is this Nobility of Imperfection?, you may ask- who wouldn't ask?
Well, simply put, the Nobility of Imperfection might mean nothing so much as the proposition that someone in effect forgives someone else.
I forgive the kangaroos, the kangaroos forgive you, you forgive me- to cite but one example.

Uh-huh.

This cycle, however, is not perpetual. At some point, the kangaroos might take it into their heads not to forgive you. Please don't get angry at the kangaroos just because of that, though.
It's not the kangaroos' fault and it's not your fault. Nor, for that matter, is it my fault.
The kangaroos have their own pressing circumstances.
And I ask you, what kind of person is it who can blame a kangaroo?

The Kangaroo Communique' ~ Haruki Murakami

A regular wind-up toy world this is, I think. Once a day the wind-up bird has to come and wind the springs of this world. Alone in this fun house, I only grow old, a pale softball of death welling inside me. Yet even as I sleep somewhere between Saturn and Uranus, wind-up birds everywhere are busy at work filling their appointed rounds.

The Wind-Up Bird And Tuesday's Women ~ Haruki Murakami

Oh, I'm not going to be hypocritical, I'm going to be honestly critical about it!

Blanche, A Streetcar Named Desire ~ Tennessee Williams

They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks an get off at - Elysian Fields!

Blanche, A Streetcar Named Desire ~ Tennessee Williams

Rather than stay behind to languish,
I will come and overtake you—
Tie at each turn of your road
A guide-knot, my lord!

The Man'yōshū, 28 ~ The Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai translation

Like the hidden stream
trickling beneath the trees
down the autumn mountainside,
so does my love increase
more than yours, my Lord.

The Man'yōshū ii.92, Translated by I.H.Levy

Of Love

He wills and loves right
who wills and loves naught:
Who loves what he wills,
loves not what he ought.

The Cherubinic Wanderer, II.60 ~ Angelus Silesius, translated by J. E. Crawford Flitch

When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.

~ Lord Falkland

Its my ambition to say in ten sentences what anyone else says in a whole book.

~ Nietzsche

Attolia reached to pull from its fabric padding the knife she carried along her ribs, but it was gone. Gone as well were the ceremonial knife from her belt and even the tiny blade hidden in the twists of her hair.
She looked at Eugenides to see his eyes open and his hand holding all three knives, their blades spread in a fan. He tossed them one at a time, into the air, catching each by the blade as it came down and tossing it up again, one-handed, then holding them out, handles first, to the queen. She hesitated, expecting him to pull them back, but he didn't move.
"Have all three," he said.
When she'd taken them, he pointed to a spot just below his heart.
"An upward stroke here," he said, "would be most efficient, but almost anywhere would do the job. You can push me into the water." he said. "I don't know if I can swim with one hand or not."
Attolia waited, sensing a trap. The moon disappeared behind a cloud. Eugenides was only a dark form against the darker water behind him. "Before you make your decision," he said, "I want you to know that I love you."
Attolia laughed. Eugenides flushed in the dark.
"I have been surrounded by liars all my life and never heard one lie like you," said Attolia, smiling.
"It's the truth." Eugenides shrugged.

The Queen of Attolia ~ Megan Whalen Turner

The Thief leaned closer to the queen to speak almost into her ear. "From shadow queen to puppet queen in one rule," he whispered. "That's very impressive. When he rules your country and he tells you he loves you, I hope you believe him."

The Queen of Attolia ~ Megan Whalen Turner

He shook his head, perhaps in self-contempt, and shrugged. "I dream about her at night."
Eddis looked down at him and said dryly, "We have heard you screaming."

The Queen of Attolia ~ Megan Whalen Turner

"What would I have done," Eddis repeated in a low voice, more anguished than her shouting, "what would I have done if she'd caught you and cut you to pieces and sent the pieces back to me?"
"Buried them," said Eugenides.

The Queen of Attolia ~ Megan Whalen Turner

Her words surprised Gen. "You aren't the boy hero any more," she said.
"Was I ever?" he asked, raising one eyebrow.
She smiled, wondering again where he had picked up that particular facial expression. "Oh, certainly you were the golden boy," she said. "You kept the entire population amused. And since you brought Sounis to his knees, you've been the darling of the court as well."
"The magus said something along those lines. All that glory, and I missed it," Eugenides said mournfully.

The Queen of Attolia ~ Megan Whalen Turner

Don't you think that humans
are just animals, who are full of hopes?
Whether it's an animal or a plant,
they know who they are once they are born.
Only humans, keep hoping and live to this day like that.

Asou Haruto ~ One Litre of Tears

I'll will... become your first fan for you.

Riko ~ Buzzer Beat

ARCIMBOLDO'S GLASS FOR THE GODS was written in golden letters over the door, and right beside it was a sign: MAGIC MIRRORS FOR GOOD AND WICKED STEPMOTHERS, FOR BEAUTIFUL AND UGLY WITCHES, AND EVERY SORT OF HONEST PURPOSE.

The Water Mirror, The Dark Reflections Trilogy ~ Kal Meyer

I can clean the dirt from this place even if I can't clean you from your wickedness, young man.

Sophie, Howl's Moving Castle ~ Diana Wynne Jones

Fuji Minami: Well, wouldn't it be great if we could work together even ten years from now?
In ten years, you'll become some kind of a hot shot, and we'll work overtime together.
Then we'll laugh and talk about how hopeless you were when you first came here.
Wouldn't that be awesomely fun?
Ishida Yuya: There's a huge difference...
Fuji Minami: Eh?
Ishida Yuya: Actually, I cannot even think of ten minutes from now,
let alone ten years into the future.
Me in ten years, something that much in the future,
there's only one single person in the entire world who is thinking of such a thing.
Just one.
Only you, Fujii-san.

Episode 3 ~ Sapuri

The Ecclesiast

"Worse than the sunflower," she had said.
But the new dimension of truth had only recently
Burst in on us. Now it was to be condemned.
And in vagrant shadow her mothball truth is eaten.
In cool, like-it-or-not shadow the humdrum is consumed.
Tired housewives begat it some decades ago,
A small piece of truth that is it was honey to the lips
Was also millions of miles from filling the place reserved for it.
You see how honey crumbles your universe
Which seems like an institution – how many walls?

Then everything, in her belief, was to be submerged
And soon. There was no life you could live out to its end
And no attitude which, in the end, would save you.
The monkish and the frivolous alike were to be trapped
in death's capacious claw
But listen while I tell you about the wallpaper –
There was a key to everything in that oak forest
But a sad one. Ever since childhood there
Has been this special meaning to everything.
You smile at your friend's joke, but only later, through tears.

For the shoe pinches, even though it fits perfectly.
Apples were made to be gathered, also the whole host of the
world’s ailments and troubles.
There is no time like the present for giving in to this temptation.
Once the harvest is in and the animals put away for the winter
To stand at the uncomprehending window cultivating the desert
With salt tears which will never do anyone any good.
My dearest I am as a galleon on salt billows.
Perfume my head with forgetting all around me.

For some day these projects will return.
The funereal voyage over ice-strewn seas is ended.
You wake up forgetting. Already
Daylight shakes you in the yard.
The hands remain empty. They are constructing an osier basket
Just now, and across the sunlight darkness is taking root anew
In intense activity. You shall never have seen it just this way
And that is to be your one reward.

Fine vapors escape from whatever is doing the living.
The night is cold and delicate and full of angels
Pounding down the living. The factories are all lit up,
The chime goes unheard.
We are together at last, though far apart.

~ John Ashbery

Lyra’s Oxford and Will’s would lie over each other again, like transparent images on two sheets of film being moved close and closer until they merged; although they would never truly touch.

The Amber Spyglass, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

At the word alone, Will felt a great wave of rage and despair moving outwards from a place deep within him, as if his mind were and ocean that some profound convulsion had disturbed.
All his life he’d been alone, and now he must be alone again, and this infinitely precious blessing that had come to him must be taken away almost at once.
He felt the wave build higher and steeper to darken the sky, he felt the crest tremble and begin to spill, he felt the great mass crashing down with the whole weight of the ocean behind it against the iron-bound coast of what had to be.
And he found himself gasping and shaking and crying aloud with more anger and pain than he had ever felt in his life, and he found Lyra just as helpless in his arms.
But as the wave expended its force and the waters withdrew, the bleak rocks remained; there was no arguing with fate; neither his despair nor Lyra’s had moved them a single inch.

The Amber Spyglass, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

“D’you think I could bear that I could bear that, Lyra?” he said.
“D’you think I could live happily watching you get sick and ill and fade away and then die, while I was getting stronger and more grown-up day by day?
Ten years… That’s nothing. It’d pass in a flash. We’d be in our twenties. It’s not that far ahead.
Think of that, Lyra, you and me grown up, just preparing to do all the things we want to do – and then… it all comes to an end.
Do you think I could bear to live on after you died?
Oh, Lyra, I’d follow you down to the world of the dead without thinking twice about it, just like you followed Roger; and that would be two lives gone for nothing, my life wasted like yours.
No, we should spend our whole lifetimes together, good long busy lives, and if we can’t spend them together, we… we’ll have to spend them apart.”

Will, The Amber Spyglass, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

Will said to his father’s ghost, “You said I was a warrior. You told me that was my nature, and I shouldn’t argue with it. Father, you were wrong. I fought because I had to. I can’t choose my nature, but I can choose what I do. And I will choose, because now I’m free.”

His father’s smile was full of pride and tenderness. “Well done, my boy. Well done indeed,” he said.

The Amber Spyglass, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he’d see the truth.
But I lied too well, I was lying with every nerve and fibre and everything I’d ever done…
I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn’t. There is none.
But I love Lyra. Where did this love come from?
I don’t know; it came to me like a thief in the night, and now I love her so much my heart is bursting with it.
All I could hope was that my crimes were so monstrous that the love was no bigger than a mustard-seed in the shadow of them, and I wished I’d committed even greater ones to hide it more deeply still…
But the mustard-seed had taken root and was growing, and the little green shoot was splitting my heart wide open, and I was afraid he’d see…

Marisa Coulter, The Amber Spyglass, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

“My daughter!” cried Lord Asriel, exulting.
“Isn’t it something to bring a child like that into the world?
You’d think it was enough to go alone to the kind of the armoured bears and trick his kingdom out of his paws – but to go down into the world of the dead and calmly let them all out – !
And that boy; I want to meet that boy; I want to shake his head.
Did we know what we were talking about when we started this rebellion? No.
But did they know – the Authority and his Regent, this Metatron – did they know what they were taking on when my daughter got involved?”

The Amber Spyglass, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

I’m troubled, and I have never been troubled before, never in doubt. Now I am full of doubt. Doubt is a human thing, not a bear thing. If I am becoming human, something’s wrong, something’s bad. And I’ve made it worse.

Iorek Byrnison, The Amber Spyglass, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

She sounded so kindly, and there was such sad wisdom in her eyes, that Will’s mistrust deepened. He felt that every word she said was a lie, every action concealed a threat, and every smile was a mask of deceit. Well he would have to deceive her in turn: he’d have to make her think he was harmless. But he had deceived every teacher and every police officer and every social worker and every neighbor who had ever taken an interest in him and his home; he’d been preparing for this all his life.

Right, he thought. I can deal with you.

The Amber Spyglass, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

When she saw how they worked, not on their own but two by two, working their trunks together to tie a knot, she realized how astonished they’d been by her hands, because of course she could tie knots on her own.
At first she felt that this gave her an advantage – she needed no one else; and then she realized how it cut her off from the others.
Perhaps all human beings were like that.

The Amber Spyglass, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

The Promise

If you need a friend,
don't look to a stranger,
You know in the end,
I'll always be there.

And when you're in doubt,
and when you're in danger,
Take a look all around,
and I'll be there.

I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say. (I promise)
I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be. (I promise)
But if you wait around a while, I'll make you fall for me,
I promise, I promise you I will.

When your day is through,
and so is your temper,
You know what to do,
I'm gonna always be there.

Sometimes if I shout,
it's not what's intended.
These words just come out,
with no gripe to bear.

I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say. (I promise)
I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be. (I promise)
But if you wait around a while, I'll make you fall for me,
I promise, I promise you...

I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say. (I promise)
I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be. (I promise)
And if I had to walk the world, that make you fall for me,
I promise you, I promise you I will.

~ Anberlin

"What did he ever do that you needed to kill him?" he cried. "Tell me that, if you can!"

And she looked at the dead man. Then she looked back at Will and shook her head sadly.

"No, I can't explain," she said. "You're too young. It wouldn't make sense to you.
I loved him. That's all. That's enough."

The Subtle Knife, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

"There are two great powers," the man said, "and they've been fighting since time began.
Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other.
Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."

The Subtle Knife, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

"But why should I fight them? I've been fighting too much, I can't go on fighting, I want to-"
"Have you won your fights?"
Will was silent. Then he said, "Yes, I suppose."
"You fought for the knife?"
"Yes, but-"
"Then you're a warrior. That's what you are. Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature."
Will knew that the man was speaking the truth. But it wasn't a welcome truth. It was heavy and painful.

The Subtle Knife, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

Survival first, morals later.

Hester, The Subtle Knife, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

Lee was too cool by nature to rage at fate; his manner was to raise an eyebrow and greet it laconically.

The Subtle Knife, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

"Seems to me-" Lee said, feeling for the words- "seems to me that the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed."

The Subtle Knife, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

"He's strange," said Ruta Skadi. "He is the same kind as Lord Asriel.
Have you looked into his eyes?"

"To tell you the truth," said Serafina Pekkala, "I haven't dared."

The Subtle Knife, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

They both sat silent on the moss-covered rock, in the slant of sunlight through the old pines, and thought how many tiny chances had conspired to bring them to this place.

The Subtle Knife, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

It was much harder for Lyra now than it had been even in the Arctic, on the way to Bolvangar, for then she'd had the gyptians and Iorek Byrnison with her, and even if the tundra was full of danger, you knew the danger when you saw it. Here, in the city that was both hers and not hers, danger could look friendly, and treachery smiled and smelt sweet.

The Subtle Knife, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

Was there only one world after all, which spent it's time dreaming of others?

The Subtle Knife, His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.

Hamlet ~ William Shakespeare

Don't Go Far Off

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

~ Pablo Neruda

I don't know whether I come from the devil or not! I don't know what I am!
I am to live to the end of the world, and I do not even know what I am!

Louis, Interview with the Vampire ~ Anne Rice

I needn't point out to you I have more wit to fare better in my little finger than you in your entire frame.

Louis, Interview with the Vampire ~ Anne Rice

You want me gone! You... You whining coward of a vampire who prowls the night killing alley cats and rats and staring for hours at candles as if they were people and standing in the rain like a zombie until your clothes are drenched and you smell like old wardrobe trunks in attics and have the look of a baffled idiot at the zoo.

Lestat, Interview with the Vampire ~ Anne Rice

You're dying, that's all; don't be a fool.

Lestat, Interview with the Vampire ~ Anne Rice

Stop looking at my buttons. Go out there into the trees. Rid yourself of all the human waste in your body, and don't fall so madly in love with the night that you lose your way!

Lestat, Interview with the Vampire ~ Anne Rice

I never laugh at death, no matter how often and regularly I am the cause of it.

Louis, Interview with the Vampire ~ Anne Rice

"Do you miss it?" he asked then in a small voice.
"Not really," said the vampire. "There are so many other things."

Interview with the Vampire ~ Anne Rice

People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil. I don't know why. No, I do indeed know why. Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.

Louis, Interview with the Vampire ~ Anne Rice

I lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no courage to do it himself.
I walked black streets and alleys alone; I passed out in cabarets.
I backed out of two duels more from apathy than cowardice and truly wished to be murdered.
And then I was attacked.
It might have been anyone - and my invitation was open to sailors, thieves, maniacs, anyone.
But it was a vampire.

Louis, Interview with the Vampire ~ Anne Rice

There is a simple answer to that. I don't believe I want to give simple answers. I think I want tell the real story.

Louis, Interview with the Vampire ~ Anne Rice

It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.

Mina Harker, Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't; you couldn't with eyebrows like yours.

Johnathan Harker, Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

I suppose a cry does us all good at times - clears the air as other rain does.

Mina Harker, Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

'Maybe you would perhaps pity me the most of all.'
I was touched by the tenderness in his tone and asked why.
'Because I know!'

Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

Men and women are like ropes, drawn tight with strain that pulls us different ways. Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace up us, until perhaps the strain becomes too great, and we break.

Van Helsing, Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall - all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him.

Van Helsing, Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. It's quite a privilege to attend on her. It's not too much to say that she will do credit to our establishment!

Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

Their eyes met instead of their lips; and so they parted.

Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

'Doctor, won't you be very good to me and let me have a little more sugar? I think it would be good for me.'
'And the flies?' I said.
'Yes! The flies like it, too, and I like the flies; therefore I like it.'

Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

I ain't afraid of dyin' not a bit; only I don't want to die if I can help it.

Mr. Swales, Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save us all the trouble?

Lucy Westenra, Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

Even if you cry, it’s one day.
Even if you laugh, it’s one day.
Since that’s the case, let’s live that one day laughing.

~ Akanishi Jin [Cartoon KAT-TUN II You concert]

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

~ Robert Frost

People

I like people quite well
at a little distance.
I like to see them passing and passing
and going their own way,
especially if I see their aloneness alive in them.
Yet I don't want them to come near.
If they will only leave me alone
I can still have the illusion that there is room enough in the world.

~ D. H. Lawrence

The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonorable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told.

Count Dracula, Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me.
A house cannot be made habitable in a day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times.
We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may be amongst the common dead.
I seek not gaiety or mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay.
I am no longer young.
And my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth.
Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements.
I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may.

Count Dracula, Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely. And leave something of the happiness you bring!

Count Dracula, Dracula ~ Bram Stoker

Battles

Cursed by my imagination
Teaming with echoes of situations
I do not feel well, pressed beneath this spell.

Polishing my social skills
With one more drink, and two more pills.
I do not feel good, I thought by now I would.

But then again...

It's like one thousand papercuts,
Soaked in vinegar.
Like the battles with yourself,
That leave you insecure.
It's all just a numbing charade,
Until the day you finally wake up
And you're not,
Afraid.

Bound by my own disposition
The endless hunt to find fruition
I'm insatiable, even if my cup is full.

My soar throats are now routine,
I 'Gotta write those songs, make 'em scream.
They're insatiable, even if their ears are full.

But then again...(But then again...)

It's like one thousand papercuts,
Soaked in vinegar.
Like the battles with yourself,
That leave you insecure.
It's all just a numbing charade,
Until the day you finally wake up
And you're not,
Afraid.

~ The Spill Canvas

He had thrust her out of his heart as he always did with anyone who tried to stay there too long.

Inkheart ~ Cornelia Funke

Is there anything in this world better than words on the page? Magic signs, the voices of the dead, building blocks to make wonderful worlds better than this one, comforters, companions in loneliness. Keepers of secrets, speakers of truth... all those glorious words.

Fenoglio, Inkheart ~ Cornelia Funke

Sometimes Dustfinger thought Basta's constant fear of curses and sudden disaster probably arose from his terror of the darkness within himself, which made him assume that the rest of the world must be exactly the same.

Inkheart ~ Cornelia Funke

But they woke him with words, their cruel, bright weapons.

The Book of Merlin ~ T.H. White

Why were sad stories often so beautiful? It was different in real life.

Inkheart ~ Cornelia Funke

You know a great many things in dreams, often despite the evidence of your eyes.
You just know them.

Inkheart ~ Cornelia Funke

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR
per
G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ~ Mark Twain

"Oh, I'd believe all manner of things!" Fengolio assured Mo, cutting him a slice of cake. "I'd believe any story at all just so long as it's well told."

Inkheart ~ Cornelia Funke

"He might tell me how my story ends," he murmured.

Meggie looked at him in astonishment. "You mean you don't know?"

Dustfinger smiled. Meggie still didn't particularly like his smile.
It seemed to appear only to hide something else.
"What's so unusual about that, princess?" he asked quietly.
"Do you know how your story ends?"

Inkheart ~ Cornelia Funke

Why do grown-ups think it's easier for children to bear secrets than the truth? Don't they know about the horror stories we imagine to explain the secrets?

Inkheart ~ Cornelia Funke

Again

To erase these feelings completely life is yet too long right?
I want to try and redo those things I left undone.

We were supposed to be going after the continuation of our dreams,
But we trip over people on that bent, narrow path.
It's not like we want to return to those times,
We were just looking for those skies we've lost
Stop making that sad face, as if you 'sacrificed yourself just so I'd understand.'

A sin doesn't end with tears,
You have to suffer and carry the burden forever.
Who are you waiting for in the labyrinth of your emotions,
With no exit in sight?

As I spelled them out in this blank notebook,
I want to release my true feelings more and more.
What do you want to escape from?
That thing called 'reality'?

Makes me want to scream that we live on,
To make our wish come true, you hear me?
No way we can stay on the safe side,
So we don't even have a place to go back to.

I'm always thankful for kindness,
So I want to become strong. (I'm on the way)
I'm feeling nostalgic.
I'll even welcome that pain.

~ YUI (FMA Brotherhood version)

Damn it... Damn it!
Give him back... He's my brother!
Even my leg, or my arm... Or my heart, I'll give them to you!
So give him back... He's my one and only little brother!

Edward Elric ~ Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood

The nature of alchemy is such that, if one desires to obtain something, he will be required to pay an equivalent price. This is the foundation of alchemy, called equivalent exchange.

~Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood

Curse on Book Thieves

For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him.
Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted.
Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to this agony till he sings in dissolution.
Let bookworms gnaw his entrails... and when at last he goeth to his last punishment, let the flames of hell consume him for ever.

~ From the monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona, Spain

She told me everyone can know everything Destiny knows. And more than that.
She said we all not only could know everything.
We do.
We just tell ourselves we don't to make it all bearable.

Destruction about Death to Dream, Brief Lives, The Sandman ~ Neil Gaiman

I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out.
But from here, I can pretend...
I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments.
Gods come, gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade.
Words don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that vanish into cold and dust.
But I can pretend.

Destruction, Brief Lives, The Sandman ~ Neil Gaiman

Visitor

He knocks at the door
and listens to his heart approaching.

~ Les Murray

You Whose Name

You whose name is aggressor and devourer.
Putrid and sultry, in fermentation.
You mash into pulp sages and prophets,
Criminals and heroes, indifferently.
My vocativus is useless.
You do not hear me, though I address you,
Yet I want to speak, for I am against you.
So what if you gulp me, I am not yours.
You overcome me with exhaustion and fever.
You blur my thought, which protests,
You roll over me, dull unconscious power.
The one who will overcome you is swift, armed:
Mind, spirit, maker, renewer.
He jousts with you in depths and on high,
Equestrian, winged, lofty, silver-scaled.
I have served him in the investiture of forms.
It's not my concern what he will do with me.

A retinue advances in the sunlight by the lakes.
From white villages Easter bells resound.

~ Czelaw Milosz

Saddest Poem

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

~ Pablo Neruda

He knew her, he believed. He would teach her that she was not his possession, he would show her she was free, he would see her flash her wings.

Possession: A Romance ~ A.S. Byatt

"What is it my dear?"

"Ah, how can we bear it?"

"Bear what?"

"This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?"

"We can be quiet together, and pretend - since it is only the beginning - that we have all the time in the world."

"And every day we shall have less. And then none."

"Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?"

"No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere."

Possession: A Romance ~ A.S. Byatt

Ever Since the World Began

I'll never know what brought me here
as if somebody led my hand.
It seems I hardly had to steer
my course was planned.
And destiny it guides us all
and by its hand we rise and fall.
But only for a moment
time enough to catch our breath again.

And we're just another piece of the puzzle
just another part of the plan.
How one life touches the other
is so hard to understand.
Still we walk this road together.
We try and go as far as we can.
And we have waited for this moment in time
ever since the world began.

Taken in the times gone by
we wonder how it all began.
We never know and still we try
to understand.
And even though the seasons change
the reasons shall remain the same
It's love that keeps us holding on
till we can see the sun again.

And we're just another piece of the puzzle
just another part of the plan
And we have waited for this moment in time
ever since the world began.

And I stand alone
a man of stone
against the driving rain.
And the night, it's got your number
and the wind, it cries your name.

And we search for clues
win or lose,
in this we're all the same
The hope still burns eternal
we're the keeper of the flame

And we're just another piece of the puzzle
just another part of the plan
How one life touches the other
is so hard to understand
Still we walk this road together
We try to go as far as we can
And we have waited for this moment in time
ever since the world began.

~ Survivor

Did you get drunk on orange juice?

Tokumori at Tsutomu, Gokinjo Monogatari ~ Ai Yazawa

Why? Whats so weird about that?
A person who doesn't have qualities that surprise others is not fun at all.

Mikako, Gokinjo Monogatari ~ Ai Yazawa

It can blow away our pride, our spirits, and our rules...

It is a wind that blows in and disturbs out hearts.

It is a storm called love.

Gokinjo Monogatari ~ Ai Yazawa

It's very painful to feel lonely and not be able to say it aloud.

Mikako, Gokinjo Monogatari ~ Ai Yazawa

Tsutomu...

Somehow always finds out every lie I tell, every secret I keep, every regret...

But...

I'm sure this has nothing to do with miracles or ESP.

It's simply proof that he's always been there beside me for seventeen years.

Mikako, Gokinjo Monogatari ~ Ai Yazawa

In this world...

There probably isn't...

Anyone whom you can dislike from the heart!

Gokinjo Monogatari ~ Ai Yazawa

Now that I think of it,

Tsutomu has always jumped to my rescue in hard times.

He's like some kind of superman,
No... More like a supermonkey!

Mikako, Gokinjo Monogatari ~ Ai Yazawa

Nothing is entirely done for nothing, said the fox of dreams. Nothing is wasted. You are older, and have made decisions, and you are not the fox you were yesterday. Take what you have learned, and move on.

The Dream Hunters ~ Neil Gaiman