Quotes from Ruth Ozeki

Like all the parts of the Gulf War we didn't see on TV, parts that were never reported.

These were tears of admiration for the strong women so determined to have their family against all odds. And tears of pity for herself, for the trepidation she felt in place of desire and for the pale, wan sentiment that she let pass for love.

They made it across the border, and Canada had never felt safer.

If there is one single symbol for the demise of regional American culture, it is this superstore prototype, a huge capitalist3 boot that stomped the moms and pops, like soft, damp worms, to death.

story is more than just a discarded by-product of your bare experience. Story is its own bare experience. Fish swim in water, unaware that it is water. Birds fly in air, unaware that it is air. Story is the air that you people breathe, the ocean you swim in, and we books are the rocks along the shoreline that channel your currents and contain your tides.

Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, made a deep vow to free all beings and help us wake up to our true and luminous nature.

Does the half-life of information correlate with the decay of our attention?

But then she remembered how easily she'd guessed the passcode on his phone, and it occurred to her that she and Benny knew each other pretty well, and that this was something not many mothers could say about their sons.

The note was written on a ridiculously cheerful letterhead, and she smiled in spite of herself. The logo, a teddy bear holding a smiley-face balloon, suited Dr. Melanie to a tee.

In case you don't know, it's an old tradition among Zen masters to write a final poem on their deathbeds

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.

You are our collaborators, our conspirators, breathing new life into us. And because every reader is unique, each of you makes each of us mean differently, regardless of what's written on our pages. Thus, one book, when read by different readers, becomes different books, becomes an ever-changing array of books that flows through human consciousness like a wave. Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli. According to the capabilities of the reader, books have their own destinies.

books are patient. We know how urgent and compelling your lives are, and so we bide our time.

Blessed Stars, please make this world into a place where we will never again be forced to kill an enemy whom we cannot hate. Were such a thing to come about, I would not complain even if my body were torn to pieces again and again.

The point is that my son has a mental disability, Principal Slater, and you people know this, and if he's skipping school it's because the school is failing to meet his needs. So let's talk about that, okay? Let's talk about that.

I hate email. It's so slow. On email it's never now. It's always then, which is why it's so easy to get lazy and let your inbox fill up.

But what a sweet story it is! And in the end, to us, that's what really matters. That's what books are for, after all, to tell your stories, to hold them and keep them safe between our covers for as long as we're able. We do our best to bring you pleasure and sustain your belief in the gravity of being human. We care about your feelings and believe in you completely.

you're like the leader of a big brass band made up of all the jazzy stuff of the planet, and you're floating out there in space, standing on this great garbage heap of a world, with your hair slicked back and your natty suit and your stick up in the air, surrounded by all the eager things, and for one quick, beautiful moment, all their voices go silent, waiting till you bring your baton down. Music or madness. It's totally up to you.

Jiko also says that to do zazen is to enter time completely.

Kenji knew people who knew how to party, and so when it was time to transport their friend's body to the crematorium, the musicians canceled the hearse and took matters into their own hands. Annabelle went along with them. The coffin was heavy, but Kenji added little to its weight, and so they were able to lift it, taking turns carrying it on their shoulders, New Orleans–style, through the narrow back alleys and the dark, rain-slick streets.

Time interacts with attention in funny ways. At one extreme, when Ruth was gripped by the compulsive mania and hyperfocus of an Internet search, the hours seemed to aggregate and swell like a wave, swallowing huge chunks of her day. At the other extreme, when her attention was disengaged and fractured, she experienced time at its most granular, wherein moments hung around like particles, diffused and suspended in standing water.

But artists and writers and musicians like your dad are helpless to resist the dark side's pull. This is territory that books know well, and it's our job not to turn away from it, whether we like it or not.

schools while their dads are on company assignments, and then have to catch up with their Japanese grade level when their dads get transferred back. Only my dad wasn't on a company assignment, and he wasn't getting transferred

this feeling of alive is not so easy to experience. Even although life is a thing that seems to have some kind of weight and shape, this is only an illusion. Our feeling of alive has no real edge or boundary.