Where there is light, there must be shadow, where there is shadow there must be light. There is no shadow without light and no light without shadow.... We do not know if the so-called Little People are good or evil. This is, in a sense, something that surpasses our understanding and our definitions. We have lived with them since long, long ago-- from a time before good and evil even existed, when people's minds were still benighted.

It is hard to be an individual in Japan.

What the world needs is a set villain that people can point at and say, “It’s all your fault!

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

pulled into my convenient neighborhood fast food restaurant. I ordered shrimp salad, onion rings, and a beer. The shrimp were straight out of the freezer, the onion rings soggy. Looking around the place, though, I failed to spot a single customer banging on a tray or complaining to a waitress. So I shut up and finished my food. Expect nothing, get nothing.

It depends on which reality you take and which reality I take.” (p. 318).

What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.