“When things get really bad, you take comfort in the placeness of a place.”

Here in this ocean, in the midst of all this water, with the red flags on those distant buoys flapping in the sea breeze, I find myself unable to treat our house in Tokyo as anything but a dream.

Inching one’s way along a steep cliff in the dark: on reaching the highway, one breathes a sigh of relief. Just when one can’t take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that

Over and over, we begin again.

Truly happy memories always live on, shining. Over time, one by one, they come back to life.

Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated.

The night glittered brilliantly then.

I realized that the world did not exist for my benefit. It followed that the ratio of pleasant and unpleasant things around me would not change. It wasn’t up to me. It was clear that the best thing to do was to adopt a sort of muddled cheerfulness.

Recognizing how totally ignorant you are is the only honest way to deal with people who’ve been through something traumatic.

I should have told her at the time. I could have taken a deep breath, looked away, and forced myself to say it.

The sky was incredibly far away, and beautiful enough to make a person wonder why our hearts are never so free.

People aren’t overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.

Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.

Even when I try to stir myself up, I just get irritated because I can’t make anything come out. And in the middle of the night I lie here thinking about all this. If I don’t get back on track somehow, I’m dead, that’s the sense I get. There isn’t a single strong emotion inside me.

I wonder what it felt to move to a country where you didn’t grow up. I had thought about that often since my sister got married. Do you become a character in a story native to that land, or do you, somewhere in your heart, want to return to your homeland.

Why is it that everything I eat when I’m with you is so delicious?’ I laughed. ‘Could it be that you’re satisfying hunger and lust at the same time?

The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it’s a kitchen, if it’s a place where they make food, it’s fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. Where tile catching the light (ting! Ting!)” (p. 3).

So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.

The world values power, comfort, success, and recognition. Jesus frees us to value grief, sacrifice, weakness, and exclusion.

For some people there is no comfort without pain. Thus; we define salvation through suffering. Hence, why we choose people who we know aren’t right for ourselves.

Euthanasia” is an excellent and comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

For my system, which you disapprove of is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness -it means more to me than my life itself.

​​​​​​You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. It always does feel strange to be knocked out of your comfort zone.

The more comfort becomes your priority, the more contracted you become with fear.