From the girl who sat before me now...surged a fresh and physical life force. She was like a small animal that has popped into the world with the coming of spring. Her eyes moved like an independent organism with joy, laughter, anger, amazement, and despair. I hadn't seen a face so vivid and expressive in ages, and I enjoyed watching it live and move.

Mental acuity was never born from comfortable circumstances.

We all die and disappear, but that's because the mechanism of the world itself is built on destruction and loss.

As with marathon runs and lengths of toilet paper, there had to be standards to measure up to.

sometimes I think I've got this hard kernel in my heart, and nothing much can get inside it. I doubt if I can really love anybody.

Kumiko and I felt something for each other from the beginning. It was not one of those strong, impulsive feelings that can hit two people like an electric shock when they first meet, but something quieter and gentler, like two tiny lights traveling in tandem through a vast darkness and drawing imperceptibly closer to each other as they go. As our meetings grew more frequent, I felt not so much that I had met someone new as that I had chanced upon a dear old friend.

What's really important here," I whispered loudly to myself,"is not the big things other people have thought up, but the small things you, yourself have