Convenience Store Woman By Sayaka Murata Quotes

The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of. So that’s why I need to be cured. Unless I’m cured, normal people will expurgate me. Finally I understood why my family had tried so hard to fix me.

After all, I absorb the world around me, and that’s changing all the time. Just as all the water that was in my body last time we met has now been replaced with new water, the things that make up me have changed too.

When something was strange, everyone thought they had the right to come stomping in all over your life to figure out why.

The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of.

Infecting each other like this is how we maintain ourselves as human is what I think.

So the manual for life already existed. It was just that it was already ingrained in everyone’s heads, and there wasn’t any need to put it in writing. The specific form of what is considered an “ordinary person” had been there all along, unchanged since prehistoric times I finally realized.

When something was strange, everyone thought they had the right to come stomping in all over your life to figure out why. I found that arrogant and infuriating, not to mention a pain in the neck. Sometimes I even wanted to hit them with a shovel to shut them up, like I did that time in elementary school. But I recalled how upset my sister had been when I’d casually mentioned this to her before and kept my mouth shut.

Anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering.

I find the shape of people’s eyes particularly interesting when they’re being condescending. I see a wariness or a fear of being contradicted or sometimes a belligerent spark ready to jump on any attack.

My present self is formed almost completely of the people around me.

Deep down I wanted some kind of change. Any change, whether good or bad, would be better than the state of impasse I was in now.

The sensation that the world is slowly dying feels good.

I am one of those cogs, going round and round. I have become a functioning part of the world, rotating in the time of day called morning.

The long-forgotten silence sounded like music I’d never heard before.

As long as you wear the skin of what’s considered an ordinary person and follow the manual, you won’t be driven out of the village or treated as a burden.

Maybe people who thought they were being violated felt a bit better when they attacked other people in the same way.

As far as I was concerned, though, keeping my mouth shut was the most sensible approach to getting by in life.

I’d noticed soon after starting the job that whenever I got angry at the same things as everyone else, they all seemed happy. If I went along with the manager when he was annoyed or joined in the general irritation at someone skiving off the night shift, there was a strange sense of solidarity as everyone seemed pleased that I was angry too.

Up until now he’d been ranting about people meddling in his life, yet here he was attacking me with the same kinds of reproaches that were making him suffer. His argument was falling apart I thought. Maybe people who thought they were being violated felt a bit better when they attacked other people in the same way.

When I first started here, there was a detailed manual that taught me how to be a store worker, and I still don’t have a clue how to be a normal person outside that manual.

there were two types of prejudiced people—those who had a deep-rooted urge for prejudice and those who unthinkingly repeated a barrage of slurs they’d heard somewhere.

I just want to exist, quietly breathing.

For breakfast I eat convenience store bread, for lunch I eat convenience store rice balls with something from the hot-food cabinet, and after work I’m often so tired I just buy something from the store and take it home for dinner. I drink about half the bottle of water while I’m at work, then put it in my ecobag and take it home with me to finish at night. When I think that my body is entirely made up of food from this store, I feel like I’m as much a part of the store as the magazine racks or the coffee machine.

When I can’t sleep, I think about the transparent glass box that is still stirring with life even in the darkness of night. That pristine aquarium is still operating like clockwork. As I visualize the scene, the sounds of the store reverberate in my eardrums and lull me to sleep.

When something was strange, everyone thought they had the right to come stomping in all over your life to figure out why. I found that arrogant and infuriating, not to mention a pain in the neck. Sometimes I even wanted to hit them with a shovel to shut them up, like I did that time in elementary school.

In other words, you play the part of the fictitious creature called ‘an ordinary person’ that everyone has in them. Just like everyone in the convenience store is playing the part of the fictitious creature called ‘a store worker.

Now, too, I felt reassured by the expression on Mrs. Izumi and Sugawara’s faces: Good, I pulled off being a “person.

My present self is formed almost completely of the people around me. I am currently made up of 30 percent Mrs. Izumi, 30 percent Sugawara, 20 percent the manager, and the rest absorbed from past colleagues such as Sasaki, who left six months ago, and Okasaki, who was our supervisor until a year ago. My speech is especially infected by everyone around me and is currently a mix of that of Mrs. Izumi and Sugawara. I think the same goes for most people. When some of Sugawara’s band members came into the store recently they all dressed and spoke just like her. After Mrs. Izumi came, Sasaki started sounding just like her when she said, “Good job, see you tomorrow!” Once a woman who had gotten on well with Mrs. Izumi at her previous store came to help out, and she dressed so much like Mrs. Izumi I almost mistook the two. And I probably infect others with the way I speak too. Infecting each other like this is how we maintain ourselves as human is what I think.

So that was it: now that she thinks he’s “one of us” she can lecture him. She’s far happier thinking her sister is normal, even if she has a lot of problems, than she is having an abnormal sister for whom everything is fine. For her, normality—however messy—is far more comprehensible.

And so I realized. This society hasn’t changed one bit. People who don’t fit into the village are expelled: men who don’t hunt, women who don’t give birth to children. For all we talk about modern society and individualism, anyone who doesn’t try to fit in can expect to be meddled with, coerced, and ultimately banished from the village.

It's not a matter whether they permit it or not. It's what I am.

The number one reason I love you is that you make me human.

At that moment, for the first time ever, I felt I’d become a part in the machine of society. I’ve been reborn, I thought. That day, I actually became a normal cog in society.

A convenience store is a forcibly normalized environment where foreign matter is immediately eliminated. The threatening atmosphere that had briefly permeated the store was swept away, and the customers again concentrated on buying their coffee and pastries as if nothing had happened.

I mean, if finding a job is so hard, then at least you should get married.

It is the start of another day, the time when the world wakes up and the cogs of society begin to move. I am one of those cogs, going round and round. I have become a functioning part of the world, rotating in the time of day called morning.

I couldn’t even imagine what a perfectly functioning society would be like. I was beginning to lose track of what 'society' actually was. I even had a feeling it was all an illusion.

I no longer knew what standard to live by. Until now, my body had belonged to the convenience store, even when I wasn’t working. Sleeping, keeping in good physical shape, and eating nutritiously were all part of my job. I had to stay healthy for work.

He seemed to have this odd circuitry in his mind that allowed him to see himself only as the victim and never the perpetrator I thought as I watched him.

Well, I guess anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering.

You eliminate the parts of your life that others find strange—maybe that’s what everyone means when they say they want to “cure” me.

Good, I pulled off being a “person.

What a pain I thought, wondering why everyone felt such a need for reassurance.

I’d never meant to make them sad or have to keep apologizing for things I did, so I decided to keep my mouth shut as best I could outside home. I would no longer do anything of my own accord, and would either just mimic what everyone else was doing, or simply follow instructions.

But Yukari was right I thought. After all, I absorb the world around me, and that’s changing all the time. Just as all the water that was in my body last time we met has now been replaced with new water, the things that make up me have changed too.

For eighteen years, there has always been a manager, even if his appearance keeps changing. Although each is different, taken all together I sometimes have the feeling they are but one single creature.

So even though you hate people meddling in your life, you're deliberately choosing a lifestyle they won't be able to criticize? Surely that was tantamount to accepting society wholesale I thought, surprised.

She's far happier thinking her sister is normal, even if she has a lot of problems, than she is having an abnormal sister for whom everything is fine. For her, normality - however messy - is far more comprehensible

Maybe people who thought they were being violated felt a bit better when they attack other people in the same way.

A convenience store is a world of sound.

I'd noticed soon after starting the job that whenever I got angry at the same things as everyone else, they all seemed happy.

After all, I absorb the world around me, and that's changing all the time.

If it had been that simple all along, I thought, I wish she'd given me clear instructions before, then I wouldn't have had to go to such lengths to find out how to be normal.

I'm poor too, so I can't give you any money. But if you're not fussy I can provide your feed for you." "What?" "Oh sorry. It's the first time I have kept an animal at home, so it feels like having a pet, you see.

I finally realized that maybe I shouldn’t have done what I did, but I still couldn’t understand why".

They looked so bizarre I thought they must all be out of their minds.

My ears and eyes are important sensors to catch their every move and desire.

Dunia normal adalah dunia yang tegas dan diam-diam selalu mengeliminasi objek yang dianggap asing. Mereka yang tak layak akan dibuang.

A convenience store is not merely a place where customers come to buy practical necessities, it has to be somewhere they can enjoy and take pleasure in discovering things they like

Deep down I wanted some kind of change, whether good or bad, would be better than the state of impasse I was in now.

If you don't have a husband or career, you have no value for society.

And so, believing that I had to be cured, I grew into adulthood.

A convenience store is a forcibly normalized environment, so the likes of you are fixed right away

A convenience store is not merely a place where customers come to buy practical necessities, it has to be somewhere they can enjoy and take pleasure in discovering things they like.

That’s why contemporary society is dysfunctional. They might mumble nice things about diversity of lifestyles and whatnot, but in the end nothing has changed since prehistoric times.

The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of. So that’s why I need to be cured. Unless I’m cured, normal people will expurgate me. Finally I understood why my family had tried so hard to fix me.

I was just thinking how much brisker the morning session was when the manager led it, when Shiraha muttered under his breath: “Ugh, it’s just like a religion!” Of course it is, I thought.

I couldn't stop hearing the store telling me the way it wanted to be, what it needed. It was all flowing into me. It wasn't me speaking. It was the store. I was just channeling its revelations from on high.

In other words, you play the part of the fictitious creature called an 'ordinary person' that everyone has in them. Just like everyone in the convenience store is playing the part of a fictitious creature called a 'store worker'.

Look, anyone who doesn’t fit in with the village loses any right to privacy. They’ll trample all over you as they please. You either get married and have kids or go hunting and earn money, and anyone who doesn’t contribute to the village in one of these forms is a heretic. And the villagers will come poking their noses into your life as much as they want.

Everyone was crying for the poor dead bird as they went around murdering flowers, plucking their stalks, exclaiming, “What lovely flowers! Little Mr. Budgie will definitely be pleased.” They looked so bizarre I thought they must all be out of their minds.

Listening to my friends go on about me and Shiraha was like hearing them talk about a couple of total strangers. They seemed to have the story wrapped up between them. It was about characters who had the same names as we did, but who had absolutely nothing to do with me or Shiraha.

You gave me the flow of time, with morning, afternoon, and night, and the gift of miraculous shoes to walk around the real world. For me you were a magician. Without you, I would probably have lived my life without ever being aware that a period of time called morning even existed.

The news about Shiraha spread through the store like wildfire. Every time I saw the manager he started pestering me with: “How’s Shiraha? When are you going to bring him out drinking with us?” I’d always had a lot of respect for manager #8. He was a hard worker and I’d thought of him as the perfect colleague, but now I was sick to death of him only ever talking about Shiraha whenever we met. Until now, we’d always had meaningful worker-manager discussions: “It’s been hot lately, so the sales of chocolate desserts are down,” or “There’s a new block of flats down the road, so we’ve been getting more customers in the evening,” or “They’re really pushing the ad campaign for that new product coming out the week after next, so we should do well with it.” Now, however, it felt like he’d downgraded me from store worker to female of the human species.

My present self is formed almost completely of the people around me. I am currently made up of 30 percent Mrs. Izumi, 30 percent Sugawara, 20 percent the manager, and the rest absorbed from past colleagues such as Sasaki, who left six months ago, and Okasaki, who was our supervisor until a year ago.

Since coming here, I sometimes wonder whether there really are any true Earthlings at all. Maybe we're all Popinpobopians. We were Popinpobopians from the start, and Earthling brainwashing worked for everyone except us three. Earthlings are just an illusion created by Popinpobopians to enable us to live on another planet.

My present self is formed almost completely of the people around me. [...] My speech is especially infected by everyone around me and is currently a mix of that of Mrs. Izumi and Sugawara. [...] And I probably infect others with the way I speak too. Infecting each other like this is how we maintain ourselves as human is what I think.

I find the shape of people’s eyes particularly interesting when they’re being condescending. I see a wariness or a fear of being contradicted or sometimes a belligerent spark ready to jump on any attack. And if they’re unaware of being condescending, their glazed-over eyeballs are steeped in a fluid mix of ecstasy and a sense of superiority.

Once we donned our uniforms, we were all equals regardless of gender, age, or nationality—all simply store workers.

The door opened quietly, and a tall man, almost six feet and lanky like a wire coat hanger, came in, his head drooping.

Sometimes I even find myself operating the checkout till in my dreams.

As long as you wear the skin of what's considered and ordinary person and follow the manual, you won't be driven out of the village or treated as a burden

Arrastraría mi carga genética yo sola hasta el fin de mis días, procurando no dejar ni una huella en ningún lado, y cuando yo muriera se perdería para siempre.

It felt strangely soft, like stroking a blister.

She’s far happier thinking her sister is normal even if she has a lot of problems than she is having an abnormal sister for whom everything is fine.

So the manual for life already existed. It was just that it was already ingrained in everyone’s heads, and there wasn’t any need to put it in writing.

Just as all the water that was in my body last time we met has now been replaced with new water, the things that make up me have changed too.

En el interior de aquel nítido acuario, la tienda seguía funcionando como un mecanismo automático. Al visualizar aquel escenario, los sonidos de la tienda resurgían dentro de mis tímpanos, me tranquilizaban y me ayudaban a conciliar el sueño. Por la mañana volvía a convertirme en una dependienta, un engranaje de la sociedad. Aquel trabajo era lo único que me permitía ser una persona normal.

She's far happier thinking her sister is normal, even if she has a lot of problems, that she is having an abnormal sister for whom everything is fine. For her, normality-however messy-is far more comprehensible.

She’s far happier thinking her sister is normal, even if she has a lot of problems, than she is having an abnormal sister for whom everything is fine. For her, normality—however messy—is far more comprehensible.

Well, how are you?” my mother went on. “You spend all day on your feet, Keiko. It must be tiring. Um, how have things been lately? What’s new?” Hearing her pry like this, I got the feeling that somehow she was still hoping for some kind of new development in my life. She was probably a bit tired of how I hadn’t progressed at all in eighteen years. When I told her everything was fine as usual, she sounded both relieved and disappointed at once.

Shiraha, until just a moment ago you were going along with it, weren’t you? But when push comes to shove it’s hard after all? Well, I guess anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering.

So, will I be cured if I leave the convenience store? Or am I better staying working there? And should I kick Shiraha out? Or am I better with him here? Look, I’ll do whatever you say. I don’t mind either way, so please just instruct me in specific terms.

Seeing how excited she was, it occurred to me that it wasn’t such a stretch to say that contemporary society was still stuck in the Stone Age after all. So the manual for life already existed. It was just that it was already ingrained in everyone’s heads, and there wasn’t any need to put it in writing.

No, I don’t like it. I hate it! But we live in a world that is basically the Stone Age with a veneer of contemporary society, you know. Strong men who bring home a good catch have women flocking around them, and they marry the prettiest girls in the village. Men who don't join in the hunt, or who are too weak to be of any use even if they try, are despised. The setup hasn't changed at all.

Si j'ai pu autant évoluer en tant qu'individu, c'est grâce à l'influence des personnes qui m'entourent. (...) Tout ce qui concerne la façon de parler, en particulier, je l'apprends par imitation. Mon language actuel est un mélange d'Izumi et de Sugehara. N'est-ce pas ainsi que fonctionne tout le monde ? (...) C'est en nous imprégnant ainsi les uns des autres que nous préservons notre humanité.

They’re all after snaring a guy who works at the same company and won’t even look at me. Women have been like that since the Stone Age. The youngest, prettiest girls in the village go to the strongest hunters. They leave strong genes, while the rest of us just have to console ourselves with what’s left. Our so-called modern society is just an illusion. We’re living a world that has hardly changed since prehistoric times. We might go on about equality of the sexes, but—

She’d never been this chatty with me before. Seeing how excited she was, it occurred to me that it wasn’t such a stretch to say that contemporary society was still stuck in the Stone Age after all. So the manual for life already existed. It was just that it was already ingrained in everyone’s heads, and there wasn’t any need to put it in writing. The specific form of what is considered an "ordinary person" had been there all along, unchanged since the prehistoric times I finally realized.

I’d noticed soon after starting the job that whenever I got angry at the same things as everyone else, they all seemed happy. If I went along with the manager when he was annoyed or joined in the general irritation at someone skiving off the night shift, there was a strange sense of solidarity as everyone seemed pleased that I was angry too. Now, too, I felt reassured by the expression on Mrs. Izumi and Sugawara’s faces: Good, I pulled off being a “person.” I’d felt similarly reassured any number of times here in the convenience store.

As we were chatting in the back room, her gaze suddenly fell on the ballet flats I was wearing. "Oh, those shoes are from that shop in Omotesando, aren't they? I like that place too. I have some boots from there." In the back room she speaks in a languid drawl, the end of her words slightly drawn out. I bought these flats after checking the brand name of the shoes she wears for work while she was in the toilet. "Oh really? Wait, do you mean those dark blue ones you wore to the shop before? Those were cute!" I answered, copying Sugawara's speech pattern but using a slightly more adult tone.