I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die,” she said. “I can’t think about it. I don’t even know how I’m going to live.

She gave me this look – she might have been watching from a lifeboat as the ship went down. Or maybe it was the other way around.

I’m not good at talking,” Naoko said. “Haven’t been for the longest while. I start to say something and the wrong words come out. Wrong or sometimes completely backward. I try to go back and correct it, but things get even more complicated and confused, so that I don’t even remember what I started to say in the first place. Like I was split into two or something, one half chasing the other. And there’s this big pillar in the middle and they go chasing each other around and around it. The other me always latches onto the right word and this me absolutely never catches up

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

Knowledge and ability were tools, not things to show off.

Wasn't he the one who said you shouldn't trust anybody who calls himself an ordinar man? - Naoko

The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up and down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there's no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness.