Where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, I sat and looked toward the building where Naoko lived. It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night.

It is the same with anything - you have to learn through your own experience, paying your own way. You can't learn it from a book.

Death leaves cans of shaving cream half-used.

One of these days they'll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end.

The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to.

At the entrance to the original tower, there is a stone into which Jung carved some words with his own hand: 'Cold or not, God is present.

Nakata's empty inside... Do you know what it means to be completely empty? Being empty is like a vacant house. An unlocked, vacant house. Anybody can come in, anytime they want. That's what scares me the most