“I half closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny...”

“That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was...”

“Nos-tal-gic, Akira said, as though it were a word he had been struggling to find. Then he said a word in Japanese, perhaps the Japanese for nostalgic. Nos-tal-gic. It is good to be nos-tal-gic. Ver...”

“What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had...”

“Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans?”

“But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, ...”

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What Ive learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders ones reality to the person to whom one lies, making tha...”

“Before you enbark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

“Maybe I could dole out the truth in tiny pieces that, once assembled, would make a picture that resembled a reality in which I hadnt done anything wrong.”

“But who can remember pain, once its over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“I know what you are learning to endure. There is nothing to be done. Make sure nothing is wasted. Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In lif...”

“My mind, I know, I can prove, hovers on hummingbird wings. It hovers and it churns. And when it's operating at full thrust, the churning does not stop. The machines do not rest, the systems rarely ...”

“People hide truths about themselves from themselves. Such self-deception is a coping mechanism, and to one extent or another, most people begin deceiving themselves when they're children.”

“People hide truths about themselves from themselves. Such self-deception is a coping mechanism, and to one extent or another, most people begin deceiving themselves when they're children.”