Quotes from Ruth Ozeki

It's funny that the question Aikon asked herself - What is real? - is the same one as mine. It's like she knew somehow, or maybe everyone just has the same question?

Obviously there are things a kid doesn't need to know about his parents, but you could tell some of them.

Nothing is simple. There are many answers, none of them right, but some of them most definitely wrong.

A book must start somewhere. Listen…

Ghosts require ceremony.

I find myself drawn to literature more now than in the past; not the individual works as much as the idea of literature—the heroic effort and nobility of our human desire to make beauty of our minds—which moves me to tears

Information about toxicity in food is widely available, but people don't want to hear it.

It also felt like home, and she wasn't sure she liked it.

It was a feeling born of ignorance, the kind of heady existential euphoria that gives birth to mere heroics or to the unthinking patriotism of the kind that we see so often during war. These are dangerous consequences indeed, and I am filled with chagrin at having been so misled.

Listen! 'To Benny, who hears the cries of the world.' Isn't that beautiful? And it's so true, don't you think?

Am I crazy? she asked. I feel like I am sometimes. Maybe, he said, rubbing her forehead. But don't worry about it. You need to be a little bit crazy. Crazy is the price you pay for having an imagination. It's your superpower. Tapping into the dream. It's a good thing, not a bad thing.

afternoon in canoes on the Mississippi, watching turtles basking on logs in the golden sunlight.

the fire that sparked us into being, is our unmaking.

When up looks up, up is down. When down looks down, down is up. Not-one, not-two. Not same. Not different. Now do you see? It

For the second time since she left Japan, she shivered with excitement. She'd felt it at the dinner table at Thanksgiving, and now, again, even stronger—as if somehow she'd been absorbed into a massive body that had taken over the functions of her own, and now it was infusing her small heart with the superabundance of its feeling, teaching her taut belly to swell, stretching her rib cage, and pumping spurts of happy life into her fetus.

Crazy is the price you pay for having an imagination. It's your superpower. Tapping into the dream. It's a good thing, not a bad thing.

Missing things upset her. Missing price tags. Missing memories. Missing parts of her life.

But sometimes we'd spin the moon, and you had to close your eyes and put your finger down to make the spinning stop, and wherever your finger landed, that was your spot, and you had to make up a story about it. It was a good game, but then Mom landed in the Sea of Crisis three times in a row, and Dad kept landing in these tiny places like the Marsh of Diseases and the Lake of Death. He thought it was funny, but it freaked Mom out, so we stopped playing.

Even though I was making documentaries, my films had fictional elements to them. I think I like blurring those distinctions because so much of what we see on television purports to be the truth, but it's often largely imaginary - or wishful thinking, or any number of less honorable things.

I did documentary film for a long time, and I spent a lot of time behind the camera, fervently wishing that the reality I was filming would conform to my narrative propriety. But you can't control it.

I live in a beautiful part of British Columbia, and I run through the rainforest. I do have to look over my shoulder to check for a cougar or a wolf though, so sometimes it's not the most relaxing.

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.

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.