“This letter is written on the skin of one of the water sprites who drowned your parents.''Ick!' I cried, and dropped the letter on the kitchen table.”

“I have written letters that are failures, but I have written few, I think, that are lies. Trying to reach a person means asking the same question over and over again: Is this the truth, or not? I begin this letter to you, then, in the western tradition. If I understand it, the western tradition is: Put your cards on the table.”

“Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it. (in a letter written while she was in college)”

“I wrote a huge number of letters that spring: one a week to Naoko, several to Reiko, and several more to Midori. I wrote letters in the classroom, I wrote letters at my desk at home with Seagull in my lap, I wrote letters at empty tables during my breaks at the Italian restaurant. It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.”

“It's not the letter she imagined she would write, but once you start, all the other letters you've ever written in your life have a way of creeping in.”

“When I was kidnapped as a child my parents sent a letter to the hijackers me Pay 5,000 dollars or your back”