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“I always feel myself being thrust back into loneliness when someone tells me it's cold on a hot day. It isn't good to talk so much about the weather �� weather is a highly personal matter, and communication on the subject inevitably fails.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Mold started to grow in my ears because no one ever spoke to me”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“I abhor the human stupidity and vanity that takes pride in forcing tigers, lions, and leopards to sit nicely side by side. It reminds me of the government choreography that displays brightly garbed minorities in a parade, minorities granted a crumb of political autonomy in exchange for providing an optical simulation of cultural diversity in their country of residence. But wild animals (as opposed to humans) form groups according to species to enjoy specific benefits.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“I think hunting used to be important for human survival. Thats no longer the case, but they can't stop. A human being, perhaps, is made up of many nonsensical movements. But they've forgotten the movements necessary for life. These humans are manipulated by what remains of their memories.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“The concept of human rights had been invented by people who were thinking only of human beings”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Your eyes aren't empty mirrors - You reflect human beings. I hope this doesn't make you mortally unhappy.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Time could not be compared with any sort of food: nibble at it as greedily as you liked, there was never any less of it. Knut felt powerless in the face of time. Time was a huge ice block made of loneliness.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Some humans claim to be made in God's image - what an insult to God. There are, however, in the northern reaches of our Earth, small tribes who can still remember that God looked like a bear.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Homo sapiens is sluggish in its movements, as if it had too much superfluous flesh, but at the same time it is pathetically thin. It blinks too often, particularly at decisive moments when it needs to see everything. When nothing’s happening, it finds some reason for frenetic movement, but when actual danger threatens, its responses are far too slow. Homo sapiens is not made for battle, so it ought to be like rabbits and deer and learn the wisdom and the art of flight. But it loves battle and war. Who made these foolish creatures? Some humans claim to be made in God’s image—what an insult to God. There are, however, in the northern reaches of our Earth, small tribes who can still remember that God looked like a bear.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Within my roasting brain cells, the scaps of thought refused to cohere.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“But this way I can learn German. I’ll write in German, and you can save
time. No more translations.��
“No, that’s out of the question! You have to write in your own mother
tongue. You’re supposed to be pouring out your heart, and that needs to happen in a natural way.��
“What’s my mother tongue?��
“The language your mother speaks.��
“I’ve never spoken with my mother.��
"A mother is a mother, even if you never speak with her.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“After the death of all living creatures, all our unfulfilled wishes and unspoken words will go on drifting in the stratosphere, they will combine with one another and linger upon the earth like fog. What will this fog look like in the eyes of the living? Will they fail to remember the dead and instead indulge in banal meteorological conversations like: "It's foggy today, don't you think?”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“The circus has developed its own natural laws: A person who looks clumsy just walking is an athlete. A person who can make the audience laugh is someone to take seriously. I thought that maybe there was something I too could contribute, maybe I could fly.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Time passed, and I kept getting lost in the pages of my appointment book, which had been attacked by a mildew of obligations.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Writing isn’t particularly different from hibernation. Perhaps I made a drowsy impression, but in the bear’s den of my brain, I was giving birth to my own childhood and secretly attending to its upbringing.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Human beings hate everything that is unnatural," Michael explained. "They think that bears must remain bears. It's just the same way some people think that the lower classes must remain poor. They would consider anything else unnatural."
"If that's true, why did they build a zoo?"
"Ah, that is indeed a contradiction. But inconsistency is mankind's very nature."
"Now you're fudging."
"You don't have to worry about what's natural and unnatural. Just live your life as you please.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Equally misplaced was the notion “maternal instinct.�� With animals, childrearing is a matter not of instinct but of art. It can’t be very much different for humans or they wouldn’t keep adopting children of different species.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Writing an autobiography means guessing or making up everything you’ve forgotten. I thought I'd already sufficiently described the character Ivan. In reality, I could no longer even remember him. Or rather: I was starting to remember him all too clearly, which could only mean this Ivan was now nothing more than my creation.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Why do panda bears bore you?"
"Since they're born wearing such impressive makeup, they don't make any effort to be interesting. They neither master any stageworthy tricks nor write autobiographies.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“The male members of the species Homo sapiens appealed to me a great deal. They were soft and small and had fragile but adorable teeth. Their fingers were delicately constructed, the fingernails all but nonexistent. Sometimes they reminded me of stuffed animals, lovely to hold in one's arms.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“If human beings want to possess human rights, they have to give animals animal rights. But how do I justify the fact that yesterday I ate meat? I lack the courage to think this thought through to the end.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“This visit by these two men made my pen go limp.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Locked in my invisible cage, I am living proof of human rights violations, and I'm not even human”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“Sarashina Nikki,”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“At that moment, the thing Knut had been perceiving as "time" melted away. Because starting with this moment, he no longer had any time to think about time.”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“minorities granted a crumb of political autonomy in exchange for providing an optical simulation of cultural diversity in their country of residence”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“IT isn't good to talk much about the weather - weather is a highly personal matter”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear

“All the eyes flew away from me like mayflies, I couldn't catch a single one”
― Yōko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear