What makes us the most normal," said Reiko, "is knowing that we're not normal.

People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die.

Everybody thinks I'm this delicate little girl. But you can't tell a book by it's cover.' To which she added a momentary smile.

Listen - God only exists in people's minds. Especially in Japan, God's always been kind of a flexible concept. Look at what happened after the war. Douglas MacArthur ordered the divine emperor to quit being God, and he did, making a speech saying he was just an ordinary person. So after 1946 he wasn't God anymore. That's what Japanese gods are like--they can be tweaked and adjusted. Some American comping on a cheap pipe gives the order and presto change-o--God's no longer God. A very postmodern kind of thing. If you think God's there, He is. If you don't, He isn't.

If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark.

People fall in love without reason, without even wanting to. You can't predict it. That's love.

In everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.