This is the original English version of Tablo's first short story collection 『Pieces of You』. It contains 10 stories that give a glimpse into the secrets and not-so-great expectations of his coming of age. [Strawberry Fields Forever] [Break] [Rat] [The Walls of Our World] [Andante] and others, all written from 1998 to 2001 in and around New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, are stories about city life created through close conversations and interviews with a myriad of strangers. All of them are set in New York, but NY here is more a fictional place than the actual city. At the center of it is the shadow of an artist coming to grips with brutal realities. 『Pieces of You』 is a work that details the faint hope that exists within a city's walls.
- "Why hold on to something when its owner has obviously already let it go?"
- "“My heart was closed. Cold. I was self-conscious and cynical. These are the pieces of my youth, the small secrets and the not-so-great expectations, that defined my coming of age. But through this craft, through my love for writing, I discovered a world outside of the small windowless one I had buil"
- "Each of us is different. Very different. We struggle, pieces that we are, to come together as one."
- "I always make sure there’s an opening in the room- an inch at the door, or maybe even at the window. My grandmother taught me thatif one dies during sleep, the soul needs an exit, or it will be forever trapped in the room. Two years ago, lying in bed, I heard a voice outside my door. It was silent e"
- "'It didn’t rain for you, maybe, but it always rains for me. The sky shatters and rains shards of glass.” “That sounds very painful.” “No, it sounds beautiful."
- "“If life were a highway, it would have stop signs. And these stop signs…they’re there so you’ll stop once in a while to take a breath. And just reflect, you know, just think about all the distance you’ve crossed. Maybe, just maybe these stop signs in our lives are good things.”"
- "“Each step quickened until he was running, running out the door and into the street, running past people and cars, running without the faintest idea of what he was running from, to a place he couldn’t possibly picture in his mind.”"
- "The food got worse over the years, but soon, I didn't even care what we were having. At times, it seemed like my mother would cook just to cook; I would eat just to eat; and we would be there, just to be there. The grocery became my own Hall of Fame in a way. In every aisle,every rack, I would see m"