“- Lei non è di quella zona? – gli chiese il fotografo che viaggiava con lui.- Sì, – rispose.Tuttavia non telefonò ai suoi. Junpei prese l’aereo e ritornò a Tokyo e alla sua solita routine. Non accendeva la televisione e non apriva i giornali. Quando si parlava di terremoto, taceva. Era un’eco da un passato morto e lontano. Dopo la laurea non aveva mai più messo piede in quella città. Ma ciononostante le immagini di quel paesaggio in rovina avevano riaperto in lui ferite nascoste. Sembrava che quel disastro immane, fatale, stesse modificando impercettibilmente ma inesorabilmente diversi aspetti della sua vita. Provava un profondo senso di solitudine, mai avvertito prima.Non ho nessuna radice, pensava, non sono legato a nulla.”

“Genuine love is so very powerful! Only a fool would take advantage of something that so many people yearn for.”

“And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again…”

“Should I talk to her friends?’ he asked softly, because he had to say something to take his mind away from the feel of her body against his and the rising desire to kiss her.‘No, don’t,’ she turned her head and her mouth was suddenly tantalisingly close, lips moist and inviting.‘Jax,’ he murmured. He smoothed hair from her brow. Her eyes met his, wide and surprised. She straightened, moved and his hand slipped from her shoulders. Mistake. Don’t make it again. She didn’t want more than comfort from him. Friends was as far they would go.”

“Your god, sir, is the World. In my eyes, you, too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship: in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best — making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius and fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is hatred — secret hatred: there is disgust — unspoken disgust: there is treachery — family treachery: there is vice — deep, deadly, domestic vice. In his dominions, children grow unloving between parents who have never loved: infants are nursed on deception from their very birth: they are reared in an atmosphere corrupt with lies … All that surrounds him hastens to decay: all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. Your god is a masked Death.”

“Both joy and sorrow serve as gauges for love: our love for others, and their love for us.”

“Don’t race through life; pace every moment with purpose, pause regularly to lace the love of family & friends, and leave a mark that generations after you can trace to the top.”

“Family is not to who you are born;Family is to who you love.”

“Never Underestimate the Divine Strength of a Mother who appears Broken…..This phrase, in the most reciprocal form, is powerful. A broken woman is perceived as weak, battered, useless, and incapable, among many other low states of Human life, effortlessly causing her to think it might be best to lie down and die. The thought represents a desperation to escape a pain more powerful than she. There is, but one superseding power, greater than the pain itself. You take this woman, who loves her kids to the highest degree of unselfishness and give her a hint they’re suffering. A Divine Strength that can’t be seen, perhaps not even felt will ignite a fire within her from miles away. No one in its path will see it coming, not even her. This strength indicates that she will go beyond any limits to protect her offspring even if it means rising to her death. There’s no mountain too high, no fire too crucible, nor a fear she won’t face, to ensure they are safe, both mentally and physically. The best part is, no matter how broken down she appears, or how robbed she may be, no one can take from her, what they don’t know she possesses. Following the exhaustion of all other choices, this strength is activated, only when it’s most necessary. It may never be discovered in a lifetime by many, but you can bet it’s there when you need it most. It’s in every one of us, festering, waiting for what may be the last moments of life or death.”

“Today I wore a pair of faded old jeans and a plain grey baggy shirt. I hadn’t even taken a shower, and I did not put on an ounce of makeup. I grabbed a worn out black oversized jacket to cover myself with even though it is warm outside. I have made conscious decisions lately to look like less of what I felt a male would want to see. I want to disappear.”

“Family, friends and relationships are the blessings of the God. They are the best way to access God.”

“Children betrayed their parents by becoming their own people.”