“I went back to my room and spent all night contemplating whether it was possible in life not to be constantly let down. If it could ever be worth pinning your happiness to another person, when all ...”

“The sharp, superficial pain at being spoken to unkindly had obscured the deeper pain, which had not yet turned into something hard and heavy.”

“I became convinced that I was being watched.Because self was still leaking everywhere, a part of me began to think it was Mizuko rather than a stranger. I hoped that there might still be a reunion....”

“That night I dreamt about the roses laid at the wrong feetthe feet of the nurse. Each bit of the dream was like a hyperlink. I pressed on one, wanting answers, and it took me to another. I could ne...”

“It never ceased to amaze me how she just had the facts always, in her head. It occured to me that if, or when, she died, a whole load of facts, a body of knowledge, might disappear without a trace.”

“The whole time I hadn't slept with anyone at university had made it harder and harder to finally do it. Like spending too long on a very high diving board, until finally you have to exit ignominiou...”

“The future for me is already a thing of the past -You were my first love and you will be my last”

“He smiles at me, and I am suddenly seventeen again - the year I realize that love doesn't follow the rules, the year I understood that nothing is worth having so much as something unattainable”

“A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”

“The whole time I hadn't slept with anyone at university had made it harder and harder to finally do it. Like spending too long on a very high diving board, until finally you have to exit ignominiou...”

“Have you ever tried to organise a threesome in real life?'I shook my head. I'd only encountered them in porn, but it seemed to happen without much admin, the same way all porn skipped out the granu...”

“Yeah!' I said again, widening my eyes and nodding slowly but emphatically to show that she had seen into my own symmetrical soul.”