Fed on a media diet of terrible news, we live in a perpetual state of repressed panic. We are paralyzed by bad knowledge, from which the only escape is playing dumb. Ignorance becomes empowering because it enables people to live. Stupidity becomes proactive, a political statement. Our collective norm.

— Ruth Ozeki

Fiction is an elemental force, which has the power to shape reality in its own image - or images, I should say - because reality, like light, exists not only as a single point or particle, but also as an array of possibilities.

— Ruth Ozeki

For the time being Words scatter Are they have fallen leaves?

— Ruth Ozeki

How much can you really trust the promise of a suicidal farther?

— Ruth Ozeki

How much can you really trust the promise of a suicidal father?

— Ruth Ozeki

I felt so stupid and young, and at the same time something was cracking open inside me, or maybe it was the world was cracking open to show me something really important underneath. I knew I was only seeing a tiny bit of it, but it was bigger than anything I'd ever seen or felt before.

— Ruth Ozeki

I have a pretty good memory, but memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.

— Ruth Ozeki

Information is a lot like water; it's hard to hold on to, and hard to keep from leaking away.

— Ruth Ozeki

In my heart, I am American, and I believe I have a free will and can take charge of my own destiny.

— Ruth Ozeki

In your diary, you quoted old Biko saying something about not-knowing, how not-knowing is the most intimate way, or did I just dream that? Anyway, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think maybe it's true, even though I don't really like uncertainty. I'd much rather 'know', but then again, not-knowing keeps all the possibilities open. It keeps all the worlds alive.

— Ruth Ozeki