But if you peeled away the ornamental egos that she had built, there was only an abyss of nothingness and the intense thirst that came with it.

A certain kind of shittiness, a certain kind of stagnation, a certain kind of darkness, goes on propagating itself by its own power in its own self-contained cycle. And once it passes a certain point, no one can stop it-even if the person himself wants to stop it.

You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper.

I'm all alone, but I'm not lonely.

I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.

That's gotta be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend, and leaving them that way.

Whatever can't be expressed might as well not exist.