For a long time I had not approached the forbidden fruit called happiness, but it was now tempting me with a melancholy persistence. I felt as though Sonoko were an abyss above which I stood poised.

Anything can become excusable when seen from the standpoint of the result

Beyond doubt, there was a certain splendor in pain, which bore a deep affinity to the splendor that lies hidden within strength.

Other people must be destroyed. In order that I might truly face the sun, the world itself must be destroyed.

If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death No death may be called futile.

Is there not a sort of remorse that precedes sin? Was it remorse at the very fact that I existed?

He was in a room of the Gesshuuji, which he had thought it would be impossible to visit. The approach of death had made the visit easy, had unloosed the weight that held him in the depths of being. It was even a comfort to think, from the light repose the struggle up the hill had brought him, that Kiyoaki, struggling against illness up that same road, had been given wings to soar with by the denial that awaited him.