It's a quiet place, so people talk quietly," said Naoko. She made a neat pile of fish bones at the edge of her plate and dabbed at her mouth with a handkerchief. "There's no need to raise your voice here. You don't have to convince anybody of anything, and you don't have to attract anyone's attention.

For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesnt begin at all.

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

The good thing about writing books is that you can dream while you are awake. If it’s a real dream, you cannot control it. When writing the book, you are awake; you can choose the time, the length, everything. I write for four or five hours in the morning and when the time comes, I stop. I can continue the next day. If it’s a real dream, you can’t do that.

If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.

When I'm running I don't have to talk to anybody and don't have to listen to anybody. This is a part of my day I can't do without.

This is no honky-tonk parade. 1Q84 is the real world, where a cut draws real blood, where pain is real pain and fear is real fear. The moon in the sky is no paper moon.