Heaven

by Mieko Kawakami

“We’ll understand some things while we’re alive and some after we die. But it doesn’t really matter when it happens. What matters is that all the pain and all the sadness have meaning.”

No matter how we live our lives, we all die sooner or later. In which case, living is really just waiting to die. And if that’s true, why bother living at all? Why was I even alive?

dying is just like sleeping. You only know you’re sleeping when you wake up the next day, but if morning never comes, you sleep forever.

Eyes are just eyes. You won’t lose anything. What stays will stay, and what won’t, won’t.”