yun

“She was so happy that she had gone quiet all over. She felt like someone listening to great chords of music that were not to be interrupted by speaking. (p. 152)”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock

“But the future, vague as it was frightening, was easily ignored for now; it paled so against the brilliance of the present”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Travel sounds fun until you realize what you really want is to stay at home with a cup of tea and a stack of books by a warm fire.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

“What I mean is, even an ordinary guy like me sometimes can think that everything is pointless. Why do I wake up and eat? It all ends up shit in the end. Why do I go to school and study? Even in the unlikely chance that I become successful in the future, I’m still going to die. You can dress nice and make people envious, or get rich, but none of it means anything. It doesn’t mean a damn thing. Anyway, maybe such meaninglessness is appropriate for this shitty nation.
But—and here’s the ‘but'—you and me, we have other emotions like happiness, right? We can find enjoyment. It’s nothing that amounts to much—but isn’t that what fills the emptiness inside us? At least for me, that’s the only answer I know.”
― Koushun Takami, Battle Royale