“When stones lying warm in the sun were turned over, they exposed the cold, damp earth underneath; and that was where Masako had burrowed deep. There was no trace of warmth in this dark earth, yet for a bug curled up tight in it, it was a peaceful and familiar world.”
― Natsuo Kirino, quote from Out
“You know," she murmured, "we're all heading straight to hell."
"Yes," said Masako, giving her a bleak look. "It's like riding downhill with no brakes."
"You mean, there's no way to stop?"
"No, you stop all right - when you crash.”
― Natsuo Kirino, quote from Out
“I want to go home.' The moment the smell hit her, the words came into her head. She didn't know exactly what home it was she wanted to go to, certainly not the one she'd just left. But why didn't she want to go back there? And where did she want to go? She felt lost.”
― Natsuo Kirino, quote from Out
“The woman had gasped beneath his heavy body. He rubbed against her, lubricated by the warm, sticky liquid, but as her body gradually grew cold, he felt as though they'd been glued together. She seemed to be see-sawing between agony and ecstasy, but finally Satake pressed his lips over hers to quiet the groans-of pain or pleasure-that were leaking from her mouth. He found the hole that he had made in her side and worked his finger deep into the opening. Blood was pumping from the wound, staining their sex a gruesome crimson. He wanted to get further inside, to melt into her. As he was about to come, he pulled his lips from her and she whispered in his ear: "I'm finished . . . finished."
"I know," he'd said, and he could still hear the exact sound of his own voice.”
― Natsuo Kirino, quote from Out
“Pritisnila je na gumb dvigala. Šla bo in kupila letalsko vozovnico. Svoboda, ki jo išče, je njena, ne Satakejeva, ne Jajoina, ne Jošijina, in prepričana je bila, da mora biti tam nekje zunaj. Če so se za njo zaprla še ena vrata, nima druge izbire, kot da najde nova in jih odpre. Dvigalo, ki ji je prišlo naproti, je ječalo kot veter.
END.”
― Natsuo Kirino, quote from Out
“Did you pick out this outfit?" he asked, looking at her clothes.
"No," she said. She was wearing a cheap, bright red dress that she'd been given by another girl from the bar who shared the same apartment. "Someone gave it to me."
"I thought so," said Satake. "It doesn't suit you."
Then buy me on that does!--that was the sort of thing she would learn to say only later. That night she had just smiled vaguely to cover her embarrassment.”
― Natsuo Kirino, quote from Out
“She could see now why she'd crossed over the line. She hadn't understood that it was despair that made her seek out this other world. That was her motive, her reason for helping Yayoi. But what had been waiting for her on the other side? Nothing, that's what. She stared down at her white hands still gripping the sofa. If they came now and arrested her, they'd never be able to find out why she'd done it; they'd find no trace of what had spurred her on. She could hear the sound of doors closing behind her, leaving her utterly alone.”
― Natsuo Kirino, quote from Out
“I wish that some time, long ago, something had not been said that was said, or something done that was not done. Something, had we known, which might have let him grow differently, something which would have seen him become another man than the bitter, bent thing I saw up there. It is best now if he is dead. But it is a waste of something that might have been.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from The Hand of Oberon
“Mass schooling damages children. We don’t need any more of it. And under the guise that it is the same thing as education, it has been picking our pockets just as Socrates predicted it would thousands of years ago. One of the surest ways to recognize real education is by the fact that it doesn’t cost very much, doesn’t depend on expensive toys or gadgets. The experiences that produce it and the self-awareness that propels it are nearly free. It is hard to turn a dollar on education. But schooling is a wonderful hustle, getting sharper all the time.”
― John Taylor Gatto, quote from Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education
“GENTLEMEN You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I’ll ruin you. C. Vanderbilt”
― quote from Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt
“Relationships were never equivalent: that was why it was so hard to find permanent ones. When two people depended on each other, they each had their own reasons. Sometimes the reasons balanced each other out temporarily, and the two of you were suspended gently in air. Then inevitably, one side came crashing down.”
― Nell Freudenberger, quote from The Dissident
“Chester watched it shining clearly above the picnic grounds. Soon an astronaut would step down off the LEM of Apollo 11 and plant his foot on what had once been hallowed ground. Science would intrude on what for all known time had been the sole domain of poets and dreamers alone: the moon. After that, well -- one thing was for certain: no matter what they found up there, it would never again be as easy for a father to tell his young son that the mysterious ball of light that appeared in the heavens each night was really just a hunk of old cheese floating in the sky. Nothing would ever be that simple again.”
― Quentin R. Bufogle, quote from Horse Latitudes
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