“I had been chipping at the world idly, and had by accident uncovered vast and labyrinthine further worlds within it.”

“[...] Shimamoto had her own little world within her. A world that was for her alone, one I could not enter.”

“A life without pain: it was the very thing I had dreamed of for years, but now that I had it, I couldn’t find a place for myself within it. A clear gap separated me from it, and this caused me great confusion. I felt as if I were not anchored to this world - this world that I had hated so passionately until then; this world that I had continued to revile for its unfairness and injustice; this world where at least I knew who I was. Now the world ceased to be the world, and I had ceased to be me.”

“Everyday brought me further away from other people, I had been placed out of the world's sight, as if in a cupboard, and I hoped it would stay that way. I developed a yearning for being alone, unkempt, untended.”

“...as if the world had become a giant train station in which everything was delayed until further notice.”

“I had been born shoved to the margins of the world, sure, but I had volunteered for the pits.”