Otsuichi > Quotes

“When I can’t sleep, I always wrap something around my neck, close my eyes, and imagine myself being strangled to death. Then I can fall asleep – it feels like sinking deep underwater.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“She knew nothing.

Not that she might have died that day.

Not that the person walking with her on that path in the woods was a murderer.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“It's not that I want to kill people, I just do it to stop them talking.”
― Otsuichi, Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse

“Morino and I found strange cases – and the people involved in them – darkly fascinating. Tragic human death ought to have torn our hearts in two – deaths so unfair that they made people want to scream. But we cut those articles out of newspapers, looking down the deep, dark well at the hearts of the people involved.

Most people wouldn’t understand such interests – but it bewitched us like magic.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“My mother still made dinner. She cooked out of habit, as part of her routine, working mechanically.

But when I saw the piles of dust in the corners, it made me want to cry.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“You know, the stinky things with four legs that make a lot of noise.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“My fear was actually the cause of my inability to trust people. Fear of being deceived. Fear of being lied to. My fear of people was stealing from me the freedom of thought.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“When you answer them, you try to put meaning in every word. That's why... their many lies cut you.”
― Otsuichi, きみにしか聞こえない [Kimi ni Shika Kikoenai]

“The pieces of my sister's body. I stood there, letting the meaning of those words sink in.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“But when emotions get strong, humans have to do something. Some people encase their emotions by playing or exercising, whereas others calm their emotions by breaking things. People in the latter group could let their feelings out just by breaking furniture or the like. But Morino was unable to direct those feelings outward, so she'd directed them at herself.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“I believe that death means ‘loss’.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“Every little move the dog made had me guessing which direction it would go. I had been through many fights, so I was getting good at this.

But my heart was always filled with sadness. How long was Yuka going to make me do this? I didn't really want to kill anything. All my life, I'd never thought my jaws were meant to be this used this way.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“I wanted to clap my hands over my ears to stop from hearing his voice. It was like he was climbing into my mind without even taking off his shoes.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“He had drowned the boy underground with his own hands, but his twisted mind still had the nerve to feel grief over the loss. How horrifying.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“I had the sense that these locked rooms were more than just a place to hold us. I thought they must be something more important, locking up our very lives and souls, isolating us, stripping even the light from us. This was a prison of the soul. This room had taught me a true loneliness of a kind I had never seen or experienced before, and the meaninglessness of a life without a future.”
― Otsuichi, Zoo

“The name Yoru matches Morino’s black-clothed figure perfectly. Her commitment to the color is so great that I imagine if the darkness of night were given human form, then it might well look like her.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“Just as a vampire has no choice but to drink human blood, I have no choice but to kill people. My fate was already decided the moment I was born. I wasn’t abused by my parents and scarred mentally. I have no ancestors that were murderers. I was raised in a very ordinary household. But whereas ordinary children play alone with imaginary friends and pets, I spent my time staring at imaginary corpses.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“Yuka could not fight that man, but I could become the fangs that would protect her.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“What I saw there was my own death.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“I'm not gonna die alone, no way! He will never allow it!”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“I continued my act. This was a one-man show. I was the actor. I was the audience.”
― Otsuichi, Zoo

“Every little move the dog made had me guessing which direction it would go. I had been through many fights, so I was getting good at this.

But my heart was always filled with sadness. How long was Yuka going to make me do this? I didn't really want to kill anything. All my life, I'd never thought my jaws were meant to be used this way.”
― Otsuichi, Goth

“By understanding the value system the world preferred, remembering and feigning it, I was able to convince others that I was free of problems.”
― Otsuichi, Goth