In Japan, the writers have made up a literary community, a circle, a society. I think 90 percent of Japan's writers live in Tokyo. Naturally, they make a community. There are groups and customs, and so they are tied up in a way.

...I've just been feeling insecure since I was 20, and that's all I've been trying to express. Now the entire world is feeling insecure.

That's what the world is , after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.

She curled up and pressed her cheek against his chest. Her ear was right above his heart. She was listening to his thoughts. "I need to know this," Aomame said. "That we're in the same world, seeing the same things.

The problem was, I think, that the places I fit in were always falling behind the rimes.

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.

There is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.