Kira-Kira Quotes
"Kira-kira means 'glittering' in Japanese. Lynn told me that when I was a baby, she used to take me onto our empty road at night, where we would lie on our backs and look at the stars while she said over and over, 'Katie, say ‘kira-kira, kira-kira.'"
"My mother said we were misusing the word; you could not call a Kleenex kira-kira. She was dismayed over how un-Japanese we were and vowed to send us to Japan one day."
"I like to see how her memories were the same as mine, but also different."
"The blue of the sky is one of the most special colors in the world, because the color is deep but see-through both at the same time."
"That’s how I learned about eyes, sky, and ocean: the three special, deep, colored, see-through things."
"Even if you tried to kill her and bite off her leg, she still forgave you."
"Lynn was the bravest girl in the world. She was also a genius."
"We were poor, but in the way Japanese are poor, meaning we never borrowed money from anyone, period."
"My mother didn’t like us to run or play or climb, because it was dangerous. She liked peace and quiet."
"Our mother’s favorite thing to tell us, in her iron-rimmed singsong voice, was 'Shizukani!' That means 'Hush!'"
"Lynn quickly became the leader of us kids. She was a big believer in watching the sky."
"Every time it was his birthday, we got him aftershave lotion that our mother paid for. He always seemed to like it."
"I didn’t care if I was a genius or if I was pretty or if I was good in sports. I just liked to listen to Lynn and to talk to Bera-Bera and to eat rice candies."
"If beings from outer space ever came, they would probably want to talk to us. So we should keep our eyes open."
"I felt like an empress on the way to school."
"That's the way the days went, with no surprises."
"I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant, but I said, 'Natsuko.' That was my middle name. It means 'summer'—when I was born."
"The stars were made of bits of ice and they fell from the sky and landed on us."
"My mother gave birth to Samson Ichiro Takeshima while I was in first grade. His middle name means 'first son.'"
"At night Lynn, Sam, and I would lie outside in the empty street and watch the stars."
"Someday when I was a grown-up lazy person, I would wear my pajamas whenever I wanted."
"I would have driven the car into better shade."
"But even if I got sick, I knew my parents would be very worried about me."
"My mother sometimes said proudly that this plant was the cleanest in Georgia."
"He had permanent frown lines between his eyes, and he was taller even than my father."
"I could not imagine a better house than this one."
"It was our secret that I was his special favorite."
"It felt nice to think about treats again, after all that time saving for a house."
"It seemed to take forever, and I got exhausted."
"That was the way it was lately. Whenever I tried to talk to her, she made me feel immature, even if she didn't mean to."
"We had to read a story about a man who discovered a secret treasure."
"Sometimes it seemed that one way or another, no matter what my father was saying, he was talking about us."
"I'd been excited to see all the baby chicks. The workers tolerated me and Sammy as we walked through the sexers’ workroom."
"Our father was the only one who didn’t ask us for anything, but we brought him things anyway."
"She looked really hurt for a moment, but then she got angry. She said, 'I want milk.'"
"You need to steel yourself to a lot of things when someone in your family is really sick."
"I lay near it and felt the heat on my body. I stared at the sky, as I had done so many times with my sister."
"The sun was warm on my back. But instead of feeling like complaining, I felt my mother’s fervor."
"I watched it until it started to hide between two trees in the distance. Then I climbed on a car and watched until only half of the sun was visible."
"I stood on the roof and watched the darkening sky."
"Lynn once said our father was the most determined man in the world. I remembered once how she and I had seen someone act rude to our father. Later I asked her why our father didn’t hit the rude man. Lynn said that he accepted rudeness and unfairness to himself, just as he accepted hard work. If he could have, he would have worked all the time and never slept."
"Our car suddenly filled with light, and then a sheriff’s car pulled in front of us. The sheriff got out and slowly walked over. He shone a flashlight at us. My father rolled down the window. 'Going for a ride?' said the sheriff."
"I ordered five of them. In Illinois, I had eaten one. Now I ate all five of my tacos while my father watched, impressed and then maybe a little worried. 'You don’t want to get indigestion,' he said."
"My sister was my best friend. She was a genius. She helped me with my homework whenever I wanted. She was going to college and planned to live on the highest floor of a tall building, probably in Chicago."
"Sometimes the thought of Lynn and how smart she was made us proud and even happy instead of unhappy. Sometimes seeing a picture of her could fill us with joyful memories instead of only sad ones."
"The windows were closed, but I pulled my sweater tightly around myself. I loved our house, but it was drafty at night."
"My sister had taught me to look at the world that way, as a place that glitters, as a place where the calls of the crickets and the crows and the wind are everyday occurrences that also happen to be magic."
"Here at the sea—especially at the sea—I could hear my sister’s voice in the waves: 'Kira-kira! Kira-kira!'"