“I had been given a wonderful opportunity to be a novelist — a chance you just don't get every day.”

“Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don't know a soul?”

“I never had any ambitions to be a novelist.”

“What I want is for the two of us to meet somewhere by chance one day, like, passing on the street, or getting on the same bus.”

“Dreaming is the day job of novelists, but sharing our dreams is a still more important task for us. We cannot be novelists without this sense of sharing something.”

“How about Proust's In Search of Lost Time?" Tamaru asked. "If you've never read it this would be a good opportunity to read the whole thing." "Have you read it?""No, I haven't been in jail, or had to hide out for a long time. Someone once said unless you have those kinds of opportunities, you can't read the whole of Proust.”

“I've been lonely for so long. And I've been hurt so deeply. If only I could have met you again a long time ago, then I wouldn't have had to take all these detours to get here.'Tengo shook his head. 'I don't think so. This way is just fine. This is exactly the right time. For both of us. [...] We needed that much time.... to understand how lonely we really were.”