“There are seasons of our lives when nothing seems to be happening, when no smoke betrays a burned town or homestead and few tears are shed for the newly dead. I have learned not to trust those times, because if the world is at peace then it means someone is planning war.”

“Then I noticed that my shadow was crying too, shedding clear, sharp shadow tears. Have you ever seen the shadows of tears, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? They’re nothing like ordinary shadows. Nothing at all. They come here from some other, distant world, especially for our hearts. Or maybe not. It struck me then that the tears my shadow was shedding might be the real thing, and the tears that I was shedding were just shadows. You don’t get it, I’m sure, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. When a naked seventeen-year-old girl is shedding tears in the moonlight, anything can happen. It’s true.”

“I think it is about life. I think there is always more life than death. Those who lived are always alive for someone. Those who are alive remember life, not death. And when you are dead nothing happens. Death is nothing.”

“The times when you want to cry are when you have to try your hardest. That's why I decided I'll cry in general. Then, when I have to shed tears for a time when I really want to cry, my tears would have run dry”

“In war the most testing moments are those of peace , for a dead man lying in the grass makes the living see the world as it would be, but for their folly.”

“...we are all sorry when loss comes for us. The test of our character comes not in how many tears we shed but in how we act after those tears have dried.”