To be able to grasp something of value, sometimes you have to perform seemingly inefficient acts.

One of these days they'll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end.

I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next.

Her voice was like a line from an old black-and-white Jean-Luc Godard movie, filtering in just beyond the frame of my consciousness.

I'm the kind of person who has to totally commit to whatever I do.

I think history is collective memories. In writing, I'm using my own memory, and I'm using my collective memory.

I read Naoko's letter again and again, and each time I read it I would be filled with the same unbearable sadness I used to feel whenever Naoko stared into my eyes. I had no way to deal with it, no place I could take it to or hide it away. Like the wind passing over my body, it had neither shape nor weight, nor could I wrap myself in it.