“You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maint...”

“I do feel that Ive managed to make something I could maybe call my worldover timelittle by little. And when Im inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to ...”

“If only I could fallsound asleep and wake up in my old reality!”

“A giant octopus living way down deep at the bottom of the ocean. It has this tremendously powerful life force, a bunch of long, undulating legs, and it's heading somewhere, moving through the darkn...”

“Tell me something, Marido you believe in reincarnation? Mari shakes her head. No, I dont think so, she says. So you dont think theres a life to come? I havent thought much about it. But it seems to...”

“The new day is almost here, but the old one is still dragging its heavy skirts. Just as ocean water and river water struggle against each other at a river mouth, the old time and the new time clash...”

“I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A river, suffering because reflections of clouds and tress and not clouds and trees.”

“Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as Ive said before, bugs in amber.”

“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

“The entire area - some 300 square kilometers - is sacred. There are shrines and temples dotted about the slopes, but they merely confirm the sanctity of the land. It is not in the shrines and templ...”

“Above a certain size and level of prosperity, regional cities in Japan look alike. To discover what makes each one different, one has to sample the food and the sake, and stay long enough to see th...”

“Confounding though it seems, to acknowledge our dilemma, that we are no different from any animal coexisting on this planet, ironic really when through the ages, we have struggled with such pretens...”

“I felt as though I owned the whole world. And little wonder, because at no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny , as when we are busy with pre...”

“Her desire was close to that of the person who drowns himself; he does not necessarily covet death so much as what comes after the drowningsomething different from what he had before, at least a di...”

“If you're going to give up so quickly, I don't think you'll last long but you should try telling yourself you won't ever give up. Nobody can say how this will turn out but you should try the hardes...”