I think I'll stay alive here a bit longer, and see with my own eyes what's going to happen. I can still die after that - it won't be too late. Probably.

She was a keen observer, a precise user of language, sharp-tongued and funny. She could stir your emotions. Yes, really, that's what she was so good at - stirring people's emotions, moving you. And she knew she had this power...I only realized later. At the time, I had no idea what she was doing to me.

it occurred to me what a simple thing reality is, how easy it is to make it work. It's just reality. Just housework. Just a home. Like running a simple machine. Once you learn to run it, it's just a matter of repetition. You push this button and pull that lever. You adjust a gauge, put on the lid, set the timer. The same thing, over and over.

Spending plenty of time on something can be the most sophisticated form of revenge.

It's basically impossible for everybody's justice to prevail or everybody's happiness to triumph, so chaos takes over.

I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.

Before I became a writer, I was running a jazz bar in the center of Tokyo, which means that I worked in filthy air all the time late into the night. I was very excited when I started making a living out of my writing, and I decided, 'I will live in nothing but an absolutely healthy way.'