“One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries. ”

“Gods and men create one another, destroy one another, though by different means.”

“There are indeed moral universals — the Hebrew Bible calls them ‘the covenant with Noah’ and they form the basis of modern codes of human rights. But they exist to create space for cultural and religious difference…”

“I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. ~ I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called “culture” – and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species. ~ Through the local or regional, through our individual voices, we work to create art that will speak to others who know nothing of us. In our very obliqueness to one another, an unexpected intimacy is born.”

“Otaku is a label applied to and adopted by those people who build a culture around anime, manga, videotapes and videogames. Their ideas and values were different from the mainstream, and so they were labeled otaku, or called themselves otaku, to indicate that difference.... In the end, otaku is just a label created to contain difference. --Ono Norihiro”

“These three ladies disliked and distrusted one another as heartily as the First Triumvirate of Rome, and their close alliance was probably for the same reason.”