Both life and death manifest in every moment of existence. Our human body appears and disappears moment by moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we experience as time and being. They are not separate. They are one thing, and in even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose, and to turn the course of our action either toward the attainment of truth or away from it. Each instant is utterly critical to the whole world.

I have a pretty good memory, but memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.

She sat back on her heels and nodded. The thought experiment she proposed was certainly odd, but her point was simple. Everything in the universe was constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives. That’s what it means to be a time being, old Jiko told me, and then she snapped her crooked fingers again. And just like that, you die.

Information is a lot like water; it's hard to hold on to, and hard to keep from leaking away.

The important thing was that we were being polite and not saying all the things that were making us unhappy, which was the only way we knew how to love each other.

But in the time it takes to say now, now is already over. It's already then.

She smiled. “Life is full of stories. Or maybe life is only stories. Good night, my dear Nao.