The Book of Form and Emptiness

by Ruth Ozeki

Things speak all the time, but if your ears aren’t attuned, you have to learn to listen.

Things are needy. They take up space. They want attention, and they will drive you mad if you let them.

Stories never start at the beginning, Benny. They differ from life in that regard. Life is lived from birth to death, from the beginning into an unknowable future. But stories are told in hindsight. Stories are life lived backward.

Fantasies, being something that we books excel at. The real stories—the ones that happen—belong to you.

It felt good to rescue them and give them a home, and the books were grateful.

Dreams are like doors. They’re like portals to another reality, and once they’re open, you better watch out.

When Benji was little, Kenji used to take him to school in the mornings,

benji??? kenji?????

Inside? Outside? What is the difference and how can you tell? When a sound enters your body through your ears and merges with your mind, what happens to it? Is it still a sound then, or has it become something else? When you eat a wing or an egg or a drumstick, at what point is it no longer a chicken? When you read these words on a page, what happens to them, when they become you?

Realizing that it was just a bird and not an active-shooter event, the children did not crawl under their desks or into the cupboards.

this is an insane sentence 😔

books are patient. We know how urgent and compelling your lives are, and so we bide our time.