“I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists. I have to force people to look at things.”

“People often say that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where other have not dared to look including inside ourselves.”

“I have desired, like every artist, to create a little world out of the beautiful, pleasant, and significant things of this marred and clumsy world, and to show in a vision something of the face of Ireland to any of my own people who would look where I bid them. I have thereforewritten down accurately and candidly much that I have heard and seen,and, except by way of commentary, nothing that I have merely imagined.”

“I like looking at geniuses and listening to beautiful people.”

“It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. How the artist captured the light, the details of my mother's dimples, the joy in my father's eyes, all through gentle strokes from his palette. The artist made me look alive when I felt lonely and grim inside. That's the way this man saw me. I decided then that that's what I wanted to do”

“You mean, if you knew me better, you'd force stuff on me like everybody else?Toru: It's possible," I said. "That's how people live in the real world: forcing stuff on each other.Midori: You wouldn't do that. I can tell. I'm an expert when it comes to forcing stuff and having stuff forced on you. You're just not that type. That's why I can relax with you. Do you have any idea how many people there are in the world who like to force stuff on people and have stuff forced on them? Tons! And then they make a big fuss, like, 'I forced her,' 'You forced me'! That's what they like. But I don't like it. I just do it 'cause I have to.”