“I want people to see and hear the things I see and hear. And I want them to remember how it was when they were children. I don't want them to grow up entirely. Every adult is the creation of a child. My own signature, that identifying scrawl required by parcel postmen and valued by a handful of comic-book fans, that signature was devised by a thirteen-year-old boy who thought I'd want to seem important one day. I am stuck with it. My life is the result of that boy's dreams and limitations, and of the company that boy kept a long time ago, back when things could still happen for the first time.”

“People say strange things, the boy thought. Sometimes it's better to be with thesheep, who don't say anything. And better still to be alone with one's books.They tell their incredible stories at the time when you want to hear them. Butwhen you're talking to people, they say some things that are so strange thatyou don't know how to continue the conversation.”

“i know at last what i want to be when i grow up. when i grow up i want to be a little boy.”

“I think memory is the most important asset of human beings. It’s a kind of fuel; it burns and it warms you. My memory is like a chest: There are so many drawers in that chest, and when I want to be a fifteen-year-old boy, I open up a certain drawer and I find the scenery I saw when I was a boy in Kobe. I can smell the air, and I can touch the ground, and I can see the green of the trees. That’s why I want to write a book.”

“When I grow up I want to be a little boy.”

“I want to live for a very, very long time, but it’s important that I take care of my body. When I am 851 years old, I don’t want to look it. No, I want to look 158.”