“ He framed a question inwardly to his vanity: 'Will this be tougher than I thought? ”
I am an inconsistent creature. Perhaps it is the pressure of my past, and not my own perverse mind, that has made me into this contradictory being. I am all too well aware of this fault in myself. You must forgive me.
~ Sōseki Natsume
Tokyo is bigger than Kumamoto. And Japan is bigger than Tokyo. And even bigger than Japan... Even bigger than Japan is the inside of your head. Don't ever surrender yourself ― not to Japan, not to anything. You may think that what you're doing is for the sake of the nation, but let something take possession of you like that, and all you do is bring it down.
But facts, remembered or not, are all, alas, still facts
The average novel invariably reads like a detective's report. It is drab and tedious because it is never objective.
