“Even though I can’t tell others whether they should chase their marathon dreams, I highly recommend they do something completely out of character, something they never in a million years thought they’d do, something they may fail miserably at. Because sometimes the places where you end up finding your true self are the places you never thought to look. That, and I don’t want to be the only one who sucks at something.”

“If you're suddenly doing something you don't want to do for four years, just so you've got something to fall back on, by the time you come out you don't have that 16-year-old drive any more and you'll spend your life doing something you never wanted to do in the first place.”

“Don’t wait for other people to tell you whether you can do something. You can do something whenever you want.”

“I’m not good at talking,” Naoko said. “Haven’t been for the longest while. I start to say something and the wrong words come out. Wrong or sometimes completely backward. I try to go back and correct it, but things get even more complicated and confused, so that I don’t even remember what I started to say in the first place. Like I was split into two or something, one half chasing the other. And there’s this big pillar in the middle and they go chasing each other around and around it. The other me always latches onto the right word and this me absolutely never catches up”

“I . . . Why do you want me to?” There was a flicker of something in Greta’s look. I couldn’t tell whether it was a flicker of love or regret or meanness, and then she said, “Why wouldn’t I want you to?” Because you hate me, I thought, but I didn’t say it.”

“When I was growing up I noticed something. Every time I wanted to do something and I feared that I will fail, I always ended up failing. In life, whatever you fear always happen to you.”