There's an ancient saying in Japan, that life is like walking from one side of infinite darkness to another, on a bridge of dreams. They say that we're all crossing the bridge of dreams together. That there's nothing more than that. Just us, on the bridge of dreams.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

Categorized in : Dream Bridges Japan

It’s the end. It’s the end of the civilization. We’re going down. No, it’s sure not too attractive. Lenticels. I just hope my kids don’t live to see the last days. The things burning and people living in cellars. Violet. The only thing worse than the thought it may all come tumbling down is the thought that we may go on like this forever.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

tumbling-down civilization kids

I wanted to say something to cheer her up. I had a feeling that cheering her up might be a lot of work. I was thinking of how sometimes, trying to say the right thing to people, it’s like some kind of brain surgery, and you have to tweak exactly the right part of the lobe. Except with talking, it’s more like brain surgery with old, rusted skewers and things, maybe like those things you use to eat lobster, but brown. And you have to get exactly the right place, and you’re touching around in the brain but the patient, she keeps jumping and saying, “Ow.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

jumping cheer thinking

Why not write a book which is as sophisticated as a book for an adult, but is about the concerns that teenagers actually have?

Matthew Tobin Anderson

teenager writing book

…It’s like a spiral: They keep making everything more basic so it will appeal to everyone. And gradually, everyone gets used to everything being basic, so we get less and less varied as people, more simple. So the corps make everything even simpler. And it goes on and on.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

simple goes-on people

The natural world is so adaptable...So adaptable you wonder what's natural.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

natural wonder world

I can't tell you how irritating it is to be an atheist in a haunted house.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

irritating atheist house

I've always enjoyed that kind of thing - thinking about the production of narrative and why it is that when we read a novel, we don't notice the fact that someone who might be very close-mouthed or tight-lipped is perfectly willing to tell us a story in 600 or 700 pages.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

narrative stories thinking

We are the nation of dreams. We are seers. We are wizards. We speak in visions. Our letters are like flocks of doves, released from under our hats. We have only to stretch out our hand and desire, and what we wish for settles like a kerchief in our palm. We are a race of sorcerers, enchanters. We are Atlantis. We are the wizard-isle of Mu.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

race dream hands

it's like a squid in love with the sky.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

squids sky

The sky was as blue as a stupid postcard, and the islands were as green as islands.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

stupid sky blue

Keep thinking. You can hear our brains rattling around inside us, like the littler Russian dolls.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

dolls brain thinking

My idea of life, it's what happens when they're rolling the credits.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

rolling credit ideas

I don't know when they first had feeds. Like maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that, they had to use their hands and their eyes. Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

eye hands years

Of course, I had my heart broken as a teen. I was desperately in love with myself. Then I found out that I was completely shallow. I haven't spoken to myself since.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

shallow broken heart

We all flee in hope of finding some ground of security

Matthew Tobin Anderson

findings security

I could see my face, crying, in her blank eye.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

cry eye faces

It's insulting to believe that teens should have a different kind of book than an adult should.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

should-have believe book

There is a power in names. Olakunde told us of ashe-the power which runs through all things, subtle and flexible, which find its most potent expression in human utterance; so that it is a terrible thing to call down imprecations on an enemy, or to wish for anything but good, for what is said out loud is forged into truth.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

expression names running

I feel like it's important every once in a while to estrange ourselves from the familiar to remind ourselves of the potentialities of people, how many different ways there are of being.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

different important people

I am messaging you to say that I love you, and that you're completely wrong about me thinking you're stupid. I always thought you could teach me things. I was always waiting. You're not like the others. You say things that no one expects you to. You think you're stupid. You want to be stupid. But you're someone people could learn from.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

stupid love-you thinking