I think that if we don't learn to inhabit other people's perspectives, then we're never going to understand why people do what they do.
Ruth OzekiThe 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 ?
Ruth OzekiBoth life and death manifest in every moment of existence. Our human body appears and disappears moment by moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we experience as time and being. They are not separate. They are one thing, and in even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose, and to turn the course of our action either toward the attainment of truth or away from it. Each instant is utterly critical to the whole world.
Ruth OzekiI 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.
Ruth OzekiIt takes a long time to write a book. I'm not going to spend that much time trying to deliver a message. The reason I do it is because I want to understand something myself. It's not a delivery device, it's an inquiry device. Didactic fiction to my mind never works. It backfires.
Ruth OzekiThe relationship between reader and writer is reciprocal in a way. We co-create each other. We are constantly emerging out of the relationship we have with others.
Ruth OzekiAn unfinished book. left unattended, turns feral, and she would need all her focus, will and ruthless determination to tame it again.
Ruth OzekiThe wondrous thing about nature, her gift to us, is her wanton promiscuity. She reproduces herself with abandon, with teeming infinite generosity.
Ruth OzekiShe missed the built environment of New York City. It was only in an urban landscape, amid straight lines and architecture, that she could situate herself in human time and history. She missed people. She missed human intrigue, drama and power struggles. She needed her own species, not to talk to, necessarily, but just to be among, as a bystander in a crowd or an anonymous witness.
Ruth OzekiSometimes 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.
Ruth OzekiNo matter how much bullying they inflict on my body, as long as I have this hope, I can endure any pain.
Ruth OzekiWhen I start writing novels, I go into them with a spirit of inquiry, rather than to substantiate prejudices I had in the beginning. If you don't do that, you can't write good characters.
Ruth OzekiAnd 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!
Ruth OzekiEven 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.
Ruth OzekiThat'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.
Ruth OzekiAm 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.
Ruth Ozekilanguage is magical - it's a form of conjuring. If you do it convincingly, readers will follow you.
Ruth OzekiInformation is a lot like water; it's hard to hold on to, and hard to keep from leaking away.
Ruth OzekiWriting a book is a way of thinking to me, the only way of thinking that I have found successful.
Ruth OzekiEverything in the universe is constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives.
Ruth OzekiShe sat back on her heels and nodded. The thought experiment she proposed was certainly odd, but her point was simple. Everything in the universe was constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives. That’s what it means to be a time being, old Jiko told me, and then she snapped her crooked fingers again. And just like that, you die.
Ruth OzekiDo 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.
Ruth OzekiLife is fleeting. Don't waste a single moment of your precious life. Wake up now! And now! And now!
Ruth OzekiYou never know who it's going to be, or what they'll bring, but whatever it is, it's always exactly what is needed.
Ruth OzekiInspiration comes from everything from the entire world, and its hard to pinpoint one thing. I can trace one inspiration to the writing of 13th-century Zen master Dogen Zenji, who writes beautifully about time.
Ruth OzekiWhen Im writing a novel, which is what I like to write, I get up early, sit zazen, make a pot of green tea. I wear wrist cuffs to keep my wrists warm and minimize irritation from extended contact with the surface of my desk. I sit down and write.
Ruth OzekiShe smiled. “Life is full of stories. Or maybe life is only stories. Good night, my dear Nao.
Ruth OzekiIt was really a means-of-production problem. It costs so much to make films. With a novel, you can write the whole thing on a ream of paper from Staples for $4.
Ruth OzekiFiction is an elemental force, which has the power to shape reality in its own image - or images, I should say - because reality, like light, exists not only as a single point or particle, but also as an array of possibilities.
Ruth OzekiPrint 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.
Ruth OzekiThe 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.
Ruth OzekiI have a pretty good memory, but memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.
Ruth Ozeki