“I often dream about the Dolphin Hotel.”

“A hotel is serious business.”

“The three of them left the noodle shop and went to a nearby love hotel. It was on the edge of town, on a street where love hotels alternated with gravestone dealers.”

“We returned to the hotel and had intercourse. I like that word intercourse. It poses only a limited range of possibilities.”

“I'm often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue.”

“I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love.”

“I found a Bill Evans record in the bookcase and was listening to it while drying my hair when I realized that it was the record I had played in Naoko's room on the night of her birthday, the night she cried and I took her in my arms. That had happened only six months earlier, but it felt like something from a much remoter past. Maybe it felt that way because I had thought about it so often-too often, to the point where it had distorted my sense of time.”