• 'I dig my hands into the cold sand and gaze at the black, shimmering sea. / It feels like the edge of the universe.'

pg.1, Shoko's Smile

• '"I'm his religion, his whole world. Every time I remember that I want to die."'

> 'I stuck the map on my bedroom wall and drew a red dot on my county and Shoko's home, City A. The two dots were barely a handspan apart.'

> 'Only when I landed in Japan did my body understand why Shoko hated the country's humidity. The moisture in the air felt like sweat. As if sweat were airborne and gathering on my skin before trickling down, instead of coming out of my pores.'

> 'Some lovers are like friends, while some friends are like lovers. Whenever I thought of Shoko, I was scared she would stop liking me./ But, in fact, Shoko was nobody. My everyday life wouldn't change if I lost her right now... / In all honesty, / Shoko was nothing. / At the same time, I hoped that I meant something to Shoko. The strange emptiness I'd felt since her letters stopped coming. The emotional vanity of not wanting to be forgotten by her.'

> 'Mom was someone who repressed and repressed her grief until she forgot how to grieve.'

> 'People said you had to write every day. I wrote every day for the last five years, without my writing becoming any better. My muscles were paralyzed with dread, the dread that I would create only meaningless scenes even if I wrote for the rest of my life.'

__>'My heart, as it had when I saw Shoko's smile years ago, went cold.'