This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock built when peace filled the world.

Sometimes taking time is actually a shortcut.

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

Distance might not solve anything, no matter how far you run.

A regular wind-up toy world this is, I think. Once a day the wind-up bird has to come and wind the springs of this world. Alone in this fun house, only I grow old, a pale softball of death swelling inside me. Yet even as I sleep somewhere between Saturn and Uranus, wind-up birds everywhere are busy at work fulfilling their appointed rounds.

If there’s something I can’t do but want to, I won’t relax until I’m able to do it.

I was reborn," she said, her hot breath brushing his ear. "You were reborn," Tengo said. "Because I died once." "You died once," Tengo repeated. "On a night when there was a cold rain falling," she said. "Why did you die?" "So I would be reborn like this." "You would be reborn," Tengo said. "More or less," she whispered quietly. "In all sorts of forms.