• "Well actually, sometimes I feel like we live in totally different worlds, especially when she goes on and on about the minutiae of our daily lives, anything and everything, and a lot of it's meaningless to me." from Newlywed
• "Oh, I just ride around and observe. To me, trains are like a straight line with no end, so I just go on and on, you know. I'm sure that most people think of trains as safe little boxes that transport them back and forth between their homes and offices." from Newlywed
• "If you - or anyone on this train, for that matter - thought of life as a kind of train, instead of worrying only about your usual destinations, you'd be surprised how far you could go, just with the money you have in your wallet right now" from Newlywed
• "It seemed as if we had toured Tokyo from every possible angle, visiting each building, observing every person, and every situation. It was the incredible sensation of encountering a life force that enveloped everything, including the station near my house, the slight feeling of alienation I feel toward my marriage and work and life in general, and Atsuko's lovely profile. This town breathes in all the universes that people in this city have in their heads" from Newlywed
• "Lizard remained silent, her face still pressed against my chest. Through the quiet, I could hear her heart beating wildly and feel the tension in her body. I was reminded of her separateness, a being with different organs, bundled in a different sheath of skin, who has dreams at night that are nothing like my own" from Lizard
• "You know that you're the only person I can really talk to, don't you." from Lizard
• "It suddenly struck me that this might be the last phase of our relationship. There was nothing more for us to do. All the possibilities for growth seemed to be closed off to us. Like plants in a greenhouse, we depended on each other, but neither of us enjoyed the feelings of release or openness that one would wish from such a relationship. We just sat together in the dark, licking each other's wounds, and clinging together for warmth, like an old couple." from Lizard
• "Even when bizarre things happen to people around us, we just have to believe that anything is possible. At this very moment, how many people do you think are suffering? Sickness, death, betrayal -- and all the violence. Think about it, how many people there are like that, right now. I wish someone would just make it stop, so there'd be less suffering" from Lizard
• "All this talk about death. Death. not having her with me, no more words exchanged. Her nose pressed hard into my chest, and the place deep inside her that gave her strength, and her desire to be close to me -- they would all be gone. Her silky hair, and the stray eyelash on her cheek. Her neatly painted nails, and the small burn scar on her hand. And the turn of her soul that brings all of that into existence. I wanted to talk about these things with her, everything. As long as we continue to live, I can tell her tomorrow." from Lizard
• "Your love is different from mine. What I mean is when you close your eyes, for that moment, the center of the universe comes to reside within you. And you become a small figure within that vastness, which spreads without limit behind you, and continues to expand at tremendous speed, to engulf all of my past, even before I was born, and every word I've ever written, and each view I've seen, and all the constellations, and the darkness of outer space that surrounds the small blue ball that is earth. Then, when you open your eyes, all that disappears.

I anticipate the next time you are troubled and must close your eyes again. The way we think may be completely different, but you and I are an ancient, archetypal couple, the original man and woman. We are the model for Adam and Eve. For all couples in love, there comes a moment when a man gazes at a woman with the very same kind of realization. It is an infinite helix, the dance of two souls resonating, like the twist of DNA, like the vast universe." from Helix

• "Oddly, at that moment, she looked over at me and smiled. As if in response to what I'd been thinking, she said, 'That was beautiful. I'll never forget it.'" from Helix
• "There's nothing for us to hold on to, no one we can keep forever as our own. Our souls are simply floating, anyway, waiting to be swept along with the current" from Dreaming of Kimchee
• "My people wouldn't be like the believers in the village, who typically used superficial smiles to escape uncomfortable situations. Even if the villagers couldn't stand certain people, they would still pretend to love them. It didn't matter if you had a good reason to be angry with someone, you were still expected to forgive him. I felt as if the ways of the villagers -- all their nuanced kindnesses and their techniques of avoidance -- were eating at my heart." from Blood and Water
• "I could go home anytime, confident that they would take me back into the fold, in that strange, gentle manner of theirs, smiling and always disarmingly cheerful, Even if it seemed fake to me, that was the kind of love that I knew best" from Blood and Water [that's the only kind of love I know]
• "When you're that moved by someone else's words, part of it has to be good timing, because what Akira said to me, or the leader to my father, might well have sounded trite or hackneyed to somebody else. It just rolls off the other person's tongue, as if it had no great significance, but I imagine that they realize somewhere deep, deep inside the power of what they've just said. You can feel that they've brought those words from some distant beautiful place just to give away to you" from Blood and Water
• "I'm more enthusiastic about people I've just met, whom I barely know at all, than with old friends. Before the awkwardness of a new acquaintance has worn off, I'm ready to offer myself up to that person" from Blood and Water
• "Just because you get married or live on your own doesn't mean that you're independent from your parents. Not at all. I've seen many people, not only living apart from their parents but also married and with children of their own, who are still carrying around their parents' legacy. I'm not criticizing them, just saying that they've never really grown up." from Blood and Water
• "I am my own home, and this is where I belong, and things keep going forward, endlessly, just as the blue of the sky before the dawn soon turns into a bright sunrise, each with its own beauty. That kind of thing" from Blood and Water
• "I would go out with Akira and forget, for a brief while, the sorrow that clings to life. I would pretend for a moment that my sadness might someday disappear" from Blood and Water
• "If there was something to worry about, it was that an important piece was missing from my life. Even though I would literally throw myself into things, I was eternally skimming the surface, never truly hearing or seeing the substance." from A Strange Tale from Down by the River
• "Somehow, I could never feel at ease. I feel so blue all of the time, always distracted and thinking about someplace else, far away" from A Strange Tale from Down by the River
• "You understand how to flow with time, and not get stuck in one place. Once you master one thing and have done it enough, you move on. Or at least you;re good at pretending to move on. I think most people live their whole lives repeating the same patterns, again and again and again" from A Strange Tale from Down by the River
• "She had a mature, almost adult face, and wore an expression of ennui, as if she were mourning something, as if she looked down on everything" from A Strange Tale from Down by the River
• "That's just how I am, I thought. As a metaphor for my life, it was completely on the mark. I had people to cart me around, protect me, spoil me. I lived peacefully in this country, Japan, living an unremarkable life, but feeling for all the world that I was special, and that i had seen and done so much more than everyone else I knew." from A Strange Tale from Down by the River
• "Once in a while, I get sucked into this maze, and everything seems distant, and all sensations, and joy, and pain vanish. In the end, my sorrow and my sense of beauty are only transformed into the landscape of a miniature garden. What an incomplete existence. I felt so, so down" from A Strange Tale from Down by the River
• "No one can survive childhood without being wounded. Everyone remembers at least one time when their parents rejected them, pushed them away, even though they may have still been in the womb, blind, and unable to speak. That's why, as adults, we all look for someone to become our parents again, and for someone to look after us in times of need. And we search for a person to live with who can provide the companionship we so desperately want" from A Strange Tale from Down by the River