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The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World

Laura Imai Messina

Top 10 Best Quotes

“Later, Yui realized she had learned another important thing in that place of confinement: that silencing a man was equivalent to erasing him forever. And so it was important to tell stories, to talk to people, to talk about people. To listen to people talking about other people. Even to speak with the dead, if it helped.”

“It isn't just the best things that come to an end, but also the worst.”

“Love is like therapy, it only works when you believe in it.”

“She [Yui] was convinced that nostalgia had nothing to do with memory, that we actually feel it most strongly for things we have never experienced.”

“A famous citation from the American psychotherapist Virginia Satir (1916-1988) reads: 'We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. And we need twelve hugs a day for growth.”

“Yui knew that the strongest kind of love is the kind that is taken for granted.”

“Yui developed her own theory: that for some people, life started loosening their joints when they were still in the cradle, and they had to work hard to hold the pieces together. She imagined those people juggling a bundle of limbs, ears, feet, and kidneys in their arms, like parts of the game Operation. But then, at some point, something would slot into place: they'd fall in love, start a family, get a well-paid job, a nice career, and they would begin to feel more stable. The truth was, though, they were just giving out parts of themselves to relatives and trusted friends; they were learning that it was normal not to be able to cope on your own, and that asking people for help was the only way forward if there were other things they wanted to do with their lives. They had to depend on others. And then? Then what would happen? That's where Yui believed luck came into it. Because if those people lost someone who had been looking after a fundamental piece of them, they would never be able to regain their balance. The harmony would be gone, along with their loved one.”

“There was no addition or subtraction in life that did not require some time for adjustment.”

“A man once told me that death is a very personal thing...' Suzuki-san said. 'To some extent, we try to build our lives exactly like everyone else's. But not death. Everyone reacts to death in their own way...”

“...love is a miracle. Even the second time around, even when it comes to you by mistake.”

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Book Keywords:

nostalgia, interdependence, love, adjustment, life, hugs, endings, life-and-death, others

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