If I stayed here, something inside me would be lost forever—something I couldn't afford to lose. It was like a vague dream, a burning, unfulfilled desire. The kind of dream people have only when they're seventeen.

I have these realistic dreams and snap wide awake in the middle of the night. And for a while I can't work out what's real and what isn't... That kind of feeling. Do you have any idea what I'm saying?

Once you let yourself grow close to someone, cutting the ties could be painful.

You can keep as quiet as you like, but one of these days somebody is going to find you.

My grandpa always said asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime.

Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.

In the spring of her twenty-second year, Sumire fell in love for the first time in her life.