Quoth The Worm

“The reason magical girls exist is because they needed their power the most. In other words, before a magical girl awakens her powers, she’s the weakest person in the world.” ― Park Seolyeon, A Magical Girl Retires

“Sorcery and sanctity, these are the only realities. Each is an ecstasy of withdrawal from common life.” ― Arthur Machen, The White People and Other Weird Stories

“The dichotomy between sexuality and spirituality can only take root in countries founded on puritanical principles—countries that cannot laugh at the Devil because they would be mocking God, too.” ― Arthur Machen, The White People and Other Weird Stories

“So, day after day, he lived in the grey phantasmal world, akin to death, that has, somehow, with most of us, made good its claim to be called life.” ― Arthur Machen, The White People and Other Weird Stories

“I think you are falling into the very general error of confining the spiritual world to the supremely good; but the supremely wicked, necessarily, have their portion in it. The merely carnal, sensual man can no more be a great sinner than he can be a great saint. Most of us are just indifferent, mixed-up creatures; we muddle through the world without realizing the meaning and the inner sense of things, and consequently, our wickedness and our goodness are alike second-rate, unimportant.” ― Arthur Machen, The White People and Other Weird Stories

“Very few people of our generation or the next will reach adulthood without experiencing the sort of unhappiness you can't really deal with on your own. We're still in the minority, so the media lump us together as "The Oversensitive Young", or whatever the latest catchphrase is, but eventually that will change.” ― Ryū Murakami, In the Miso Soup

“Parents, teachers, government - they all teach you how to live the dreary, deadening life of a slave, but nobody teaches you how to live normally.” ― Ryū Murakami, In the Miso Soup

“People who love horror films are people with boring lives... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news.” ― Ryu Murakami, In the Miso Soup

“Most of our distress begins when we imagine how different life should have been. Entrusting your hopes to something as flimsy as your possibilities is the root of all evil.” ― Tomihiko Morimi, The Tatami Galaxy

“When your chance comes, don’t miss it. When it comes, you can’t go idly doing the same things you’ve always done. Be bold, and try seizing your chance by doing sometimes completely different. If you do that, your dissatisfaction will disappear, and you be able to walk down a new path.” ― Tomihiko Morimi, The Tatami Galaxy