All you have to do is wait,” I explained. “Sit tight and wait for the right moment. Not try to change anything by force, just watch the drift of things. Make an effort to cast a fair eye on everything. If you do that, you just naturally know what to do. But everyone’s always too busy. They’re too talented, their schedules are too full. They’re too interested in themselves to think about what’s fair.

If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.

Grandfather always said school’s a place where they take sixteen years to wear down your brain. Grandfather hardly went to school either.

I'd be smiling and chatting away, and my mind would be floating around somewhere else, like a balloon with a broken string.

I wrote a huge number of letters that spring: one a week to Naoko, several to Reiko, and several more to Midori. I wrote letters in the classroom, I wrote letters at my desk at home with Seagull in my lap, I wrote letters at empty tables during my breaks at the Italian restaurant. It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.

You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.

I wonder what ants do on rainy days?