I am nothing. I’m like someone who’s been thrown into the ocean at night, floating all alone. I reach out, but no one is there. I call out, but no one answers. I have no connection to anything.

Nobody's easier to fool, than the person who is convinced that he is right.

When I was fifteen, all I wanted was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anybody’s reach. A place beyond the flow of time.” - But there’s no place like that in this world. - Exactly. Which is why I’m living here, in this world where things are continually damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time flows past without a break.

Even if we could turn back, we'd probably never end up where we started.

The body is not the only target of rape. Violence does not always take a visible form, and not all wounds gush blood.

It depends on which reality you take and which reality I take.” (p. 318).

With the advent of winter, her eyes seemed to take on a greater transparency, a transparency that lead nowhere. Occassionally, for no particular reason, Naoko would gaze into my eyes as if searching for something. Each time I was filled with odd sensations of lonliness and inadequecy.