“Age has nothing to do with it,” Aomame snapped back. “It’s a question of how you live your life. The important thing is to adopt a stance of always being deadly serious about protecting yourself. You can’t go anywhere if you just resign yourself to being attacked. A state of chronic powerlessness eats away at a person.”
The dowager said nothing for a while, looking Aomame in the eye.
Either Aomame’s words or her tone of voice seemed to have made a strong impression on her. She nodded gravely. “You’re right. You are absolutely right,” she said. “You have obviously done some solid thinking about this.”
— 1Q84 (Haruki Murakami), Loc. 2820–4