I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.

Of course you keep telling yourself there's something to be learned from everything, and growing old shouldn't be that hard. That's the general drift.

Sometimes when I'm with you, I remember things I lost when I was your age. Like I remember the sound of the rain and the smell of the wind.

Sometimes it's not the people who change, it's the mask that falls off.

The body is not the only target of rape. Violence does not always take a visible form, and not all wounds gush blood.

This is no honky-tonk parade. 1Q84 is the real world, where a cut draws real blood, where pain is real pain and fear is real fear. The moon in the sky is no paper moon.

I spent thirty-three years in another man's shadow. I went everywhere he went, I helped him with everything he did. I was in a sense a part of him. When you live like that for a long time, you gradually lose track of what it is you yourself really want out of life