My heroes don't have anything special. They have something to tell other people but they don't know how, so they talk to themselves.

I never trust people with no appetite. It's like they're always holding something back on you.

In any case, suffice it to say I enjoyed hearing about faraway places. I had stocked up a whole store of these places, like a bear getting ready for hibernation. I'd close my eyes, and streets would materialize, rows of houses take shape. I could hear people's voices, feel the gentle, steady rhythm of their lives, those people so distant, whom I'd probably never know.

Is this what it means to go back to square one? Most likely. He had nothing left to lose, other than his life.

It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.

So for all that we might speak words in each other's vicinity, this could never develop into anything that could be called a conversation. It was as though we were speaking in different languages. If the Dalai Lama were on his deathbed and the jazz musician Eric Dolphy were to try to explain to him the importance of choosing one's engine oil in accordance with changes in the sound of the bass clarinet, that exchange might have been more worthwhile and effective than my conversations with Noboru Wataya.

We were young, and we had no need for prophecies. Just living was itself an act of prophecy.