Anne (BSD-Bibliophile)

I'm sure they got quiet because I live in a conservative small town where women who read anything other than fantasy romance are practically aliens. My coworker is a big fan of A Court of Thorns and Roses, so her tastes are more widely accepted. The last time I brought a book to work it was The Clock House Murders by Ayatsuji Yukito and everyone lowkey made fun of the "weird Japanese names." So I'm already the weird nerd they don't know how to respond to. But that's how my brand of autism usually affects people, so I'm used to it.

I've started using Annas Archive to download books I want to try out (it doesn't have many manga unfortunately, but it's a great source for novels), and then if I like it I'll buy it. It's also fun to go to the book store and see what books the staff pick out for different displays or just browse random shelves to see if anything different jumps out at me. It's so different browsing for books in a store rather than shopping online. Sometimes holding a book in your hands and flipping through it helps you decide whether or not to buy it. I hope bookstores will always be there.

"You know, I’ve always thought that there is no one on the planet who isn’t ‘mad’ in some sense. If ‘normality’ is defined as the combined average of all of the facets of a human personality, and any deviation is considered abnormal, then, strictly speaking, there’s no such thing as ‘normal’. And even if we take a narrower definition of insanity, anybody has the potential to give in to madness. Even you, or Kawaminami over there, or myself. You can’t tell when or where someone might go insane. You can’t even know for sure whether people will even recognize madness when they see it."

"Lately, I have become more and more convinced that what we normally perceive as unshakeable, objective reality is in fact extremely fragile and precarious. And there are a surprising number of people around us who do not comprehend this fact at all... Reality is not something that exists absolutely. This might sound fanciful, but, in a sense, it’s simply a massive illusion, one that is projected by a society and accepted by the people within it."

“Towa detested the many clocks scattered throughout the old wing. But she never said that directly to my master.” “Why did she hate them?” “She told me that she thought they were creepy. That she felt as though she were always being watched by them, or as though she were being physically restrained by them in some way..."

I suspect that the misunderstanding comes from how the words "pert" and "plump" sound similar, but the meanings are not the same.

T.M. Revolution - HOT LIMIT / The First Take 2026!

"I’ve never been lectured and changed because of it. I’ve never ended up admiring the person who gave the lecture, ever. People who give lectures are drunk on their egos. They should pull their heads out of their asses. Truly great people just smile when others make mistakes. Profound, tranquil smiles can shatter illusions without words. All of a sudden, the scales fall from your eyes. And next time, you do better. But being lectured just sucks."

"At night, the wind settled down a little, but I could still hear it beating at the storm shutters. Other than that, it was a beautiful moonlit evening. Listen, wind. Blow all you want, but don’t blow away the moon and stars."

"My mom and my brother and my sister coddle me, spoil me, tell me I’m doing good, and I get a big head about it, but when I take a step out into the world everything goes to hell. I’m a pathetic little person. Maybe it’s my fate to climb to the highest heights and then plummet to the ground. The world is a petty place filled with people who hate each other for no reason. It sucks, but that’s the way it is."

Stepping inside, I’d been startled by the sight of books everywhere, in the genkan, in the hallway, in the parlor with the tatami floor. “Have you actually read all these?” I asked. Forget being polite—I needed to know. Tsuda smiled.  “Are you kidding? No. But when I’m ready, they’re there waiting.”

“Growing up”: these are the words that swim up in my mind. An adult. What a thing to become.

"Until now, my solitude was, let’s say, relative. I was overly conscious of other people, and because of that, I ended up having to strike artificial poses. But this solitude that’s settled in today is different. I’ve got no interest at all in any other person. Everyone annoys me. I feel like I could easily withdraw from the world. ... Disenchantment. That’s definitely the word. I was trying hard not to use it, but there’s just no other word. Disenchantment it is."