Mizuki Nomura

“People from different cultures have different definitions for beauty. Isn't that sad to judge others with our standards... rather than appreciate them?”

“I said, Saturday is the first day of my National Center Test.""That's tomorrow, though!" My eyes bugged out."Yes, ever since antiquity, the day after Friday has been Saturday.”

“Hee-hee-hee. I'm fine, reeeeally. Wanting to die is starting to be a habit for me. Don't worry about it, okay? Next week there's a sale I've been looking forward to, and I promised some friends that I'd go see a movie with them, and I haven't even used my half-price ticket for griddled monja cakes yet, so I can't die.”

“When you're alone and you feel sad, try reading a book. Try touching someone's heart. Try to imagine what they were thinking, what they wanted to convey. If you do that, you might get something amazing.”

“When someone is force to realize that the road he'd been working hard to make progress on was no different from the place he'd started, and when he realized that he had in fact gone backward, all that person can do is face the pale sky and lament.”

“How did we keep getting so lost in a midnight world? Why did we continue lamenting as we wounded our hearts and were cut apart?”

“There’s a different flavor to children’s literature you read after you grow up than there was reading it as a child. Things that were sweet as a child become bitter once you grow up.”

“I eat stories instead of bread or rice. I usually eat books, but I love handwriting best. Love stories are sugary, so I like those even better. So you better write me a suuuuper yummy story.”

“All things pass...Perhaps the passage of time is a kind of healing, or a kind of salvation granted equally to all people.”

“...there are a lot of things in this world you don't understand. Discovering those things is one of life's joys.”

“When you close the book, does the story end? No! That's such a bland way to read. Every story goes on forever in our imaginations, and its characters live on.”

“So why did you say we should break up, Kazushi? Because I stabbed Igarashi?”

“Christine wouldn't choose him. But the reader won't forget him. They won't forget the Phantom's lamentations, his life, his love. They love the disfigured Phantom who casts off his mask.”

“Let them be spattered in humiliation, be spattered in corruption; let them hear the dirge that spills from my lips, once those of a human being but no longer. The angel who deceived me, the men who treated me like an animal. you've all made me into a Phantom.”

“I've built many doorways and set out traps so that no one will be able to reach this place. That's what the angel said. This is a castle of darkness for the angel and I alone. Only within this yielding gloom can I lament the misfortune that has rained down all around me, only here am I permitted to scorn and pity the ugliness, the filthiness of how I smile and pretend at being pure in the light of day.”

“Even though my angel has forgiven me and rescued me, who on earth will save him, who cannot be allowed into the light of the sun, who has lost his name, who can only hide himself in the world of darkness?”

“The angel destroyed me! He seduced me with a pure voice, spoke kind words, and stroked my hair to lower my guard, to make me trust him, to trick me! He sullied my body, my voice, my heart; remade me as a terrifying monster; turned me into his companion! The angel was a disfigured phantom wearing a mask!”

“What I got in exchange for my false prosperity was only a fearful destruction, a cold mask, and a pitch-dark castle like a mausoleum that the Phantom made.”

“Noooo They can't burn up Books aren't any good when they're well done You can't cook them that long”

“They're going to burn this complete collection of MacDonald's children's book There's a new translation out in paperback but I've always dreamed of eating the entire twelve-volume set in hardcover I refuse to watch something so delicious get turned to charcoal right in front of me”

“My chronic hiccups suddenly came back so I had to go the hospital." "I never heard of you having this condition before”

“I don't like ordinary girls. But a girl who would kill a guy to make him hers and then kiss his still-warm lips... a girl like Oscar Wilde's Salome They drive me crazy. Like Kiyohime turning into a snake to chase her man or the grocery girl Oshichi who set fire to a building just to see hers one more time. I want to be loved like that be obsessed over be hated.”

“Yes. We will live the rest of our lives in hell. It's not so bad: as long as you're prepared for it, you can live anywhere.”

“I couldn't save Kataoka."If I loved him, I had to grant him his last wish."So I told him what he wanted to hear."I said, 'No, you're no longer human.'"I hadn't been able to say anything.I couldn't speak, I couldn't move, I couldn't understand a word of what Miu was telling me."Kataoka smiled kindly."Like he was thanking me."Then he jumped off the roof."Osamu Dazai and I killed him.”

“I'm not a detective from Baker Street or an old lady who solves crimes while she's knitting in an easy chair. I'm just a book girl. So I can't make a deduction, only take a flight of fancy--er, forget I said that. I meant, I can only take a guess.”

“So then do you think it's true that he killed someone? And what about the part where he wishes he could die?""If it IS true that he killed someone, that's bad."In any case, "it seems like something is bothering Shuji" was now a contender for the Understatement of the Century.”