Quotes by Ruth Ozeki

I would like to think of my ignorance less as a personal failing and more as a massive cultural trend, an example of doubling, of psychic numbing, that characterizes the end of the millennium. If we can’t act on knowledge, then we can’t survive without ignorance.

In my heart, I am American, and I believe I have a free will and can take charge of my own destiny.

We place such crazy importance on physical appearance in our image-obsessed culture, on youth and beauty to define our sense of self-worth, that aging, by default, becomes a kind of defect, something secret and corrosive and shameful.

By changing our history and our memory, they try to erase all our shame.

Were by-products of the mid-twentieth century, Oliver said. Who isnt?

Patience was part of his nature, and he accepted his lot as a short-lived mammal, scurrying in and out amid the roots of the giants.

Do all kids have to worry about their parents’ mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it’s the other way around.

What is it that frightens us about a novel of causes, and conversely, does fiction have to exist in some suspended, apolitical landscape in order to be literary? Can it not politically and temporally specific and still be in good literary taste? We are leery of literature that smacks of the polemic, instructional, or prescriptive, and I guess rightly so--its a drag to be lectured to--but what does that imply about our attitudes towards intellectual inquiry? While I enjoy reading kitchen-table novels in which characters are distilled to their emotional essence and their lives stripped of politics and commerce, it simply is not reflective of my experience. I see our lives as being a part of an enormous web of interconnected spheres, where the workings of the larger social, political, and corporate machinery impact something as private and intimate as the descent of an egg through a womans fallopian tube. This is the resonance I want to conjure in my books.I want to write novels that engage the emotions and the intellect, and that means going head to head with the chaos of evils and issues that threaten to overpower us all. And if they threaten to overpower the characters, then I have to make the characters stronger.

True freedom comes from being unknown.

She missed the built environment of New York City. It was only in an urban landscape, amid straight lines and architecture, that she could situate herself in human time and history. She missed people. She missed human intrigue, drama and power struggles. She needed her own species, not to talk to, necessarily, but just to be among, as a bystander in a crowd or an anonymous witness.

Theres so much to write. Where should I start?I texted my old Jiko this question, and she wrote me back this:You should start where you are

In your diary, you quoted old Jiko saying something about not-knowing, how not-knowing is the most intimate way, or did I just dream that?Anyway, Ive been thinking about this a lot, and I think maybe its true, even though I dont really like uncertainty. Id much rather know, but then again, not-knowing keeps all the possibilities open. It keeps all the worlds alive.

An unfinished book. left unattended, turns feral, and she would need all her focus, will and ruthless determination to tame it again.

For the time beingWords scatterAre they fallen leaves?

As I bathe myselfI pray with all beingsthat we can purify body and mindand clean ourselves inside and out.

To study the self is to forget the self. Maybe if you sat enough zazen, your sense of being a solid, singular self would dissolve and you could forget about it. What a relief. You could just hang out happily as part of an open-ended quantum array.

Zazen is better than a home. Zazen is a home that you cant ever lose.

How much can you really trust the promise of a suicidal father?

Am I crazy? she asked. I feel like I am sometimes. Maybe, he said, rubbing her forehead. But dont worry about it. You need to be a little bit crazy. Crazy is the price you pay for having an imagination. Its your superpower. Tapping into the dream. Its a good thing not a bad thing.

I have a pretty good memory, but memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.