Life: I'll never understand it.

I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next.

You couldn’t begin to imagine who I am, where I’m going, or what I’m about to do, All of you are trapped here. You can’t go anywhere, forward or back. But I’m not like you. I have work to do. I have a mission to accomplish. And so, with your permission, I shall move ahead.

I wonder what ants do on rainy days?

There's a special feeling you get on a veranda that you just can't get anywhere else.

So for all that we might speak words in each other's vicinity, this could never develop into anything that could be called a conversation. It was as though we were speaking in different languages. If the Dalai Lama were on his deathbed and the jazz musician Eric Dolphy were to try to explain to him the importance of choosing one's engine oil in accordance with changes in the sound of the bass clarinet, that exchange might have been more worthwhile and effective than my conversations with Noboru Wataya.

Like flowers scattered in a storm, a man's life is a long farewell.