It's basically the same in all periods of societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.' 'And those troubling things are all you /can/ think about when you're one of the few.' 'That's about the size of it,' she said mournfully. 'But maybe, if you're in a situation like that, you learn to think for yourself.' 'Yes, but maybe what you end up thinking for yourself /about/ is all those troubling things.

Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade.

Mediocrity's like a spot on a shirt—it never comes off.

The facts and techniques or whatever they teach you in class isn't going to be veryuseful in the real world, that's for sure.

The silence grew deeper, so deep that if you listened carefully you might very well catch the sound of the earth revolving on its axis.

One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of true harmony.

Nakata's empty inside... Do you know what it means to be completely empty? Being empty is like a vacant house. An unlocked, vacant house. Anybody can come in, anytime they want. That's what scares me the most