“I'm a coward when it comes to matters of the heart. That is my fatal flaw.”

“I have a thing about losers. Flaws in oneself open you up to others with flaws. Not that Dostoyevsky's characters don't generate phatos, but they're flawed in ways that don't come across as faults. And while I'm on the subject, Tolstoy's characters' faults are so epic and out of scale, they're as static as backdrops.”

“What matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. When you do that, it is always the first time and the last.”

“The journey I'm taking is inside me. Just like blood travels down veins, what I'm seeing is my inner self and what seems threatening is just the echo of the fear in my heart.”

“No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that’s stolen from us - that’s snatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence.I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do. To dream, to live in the world of dreams - just as Sumire said. But it doesn’t last forever. Wakefulness always comes to take me back.”

“I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than yourealize.”

“Hatred is like a long, dark shadow. Not even the person it falls upon knows where it comes from, in most cases. It is like a two-edged sword. When you cut the other person, you cut yourself. The more violently you hack at the other person, the more violently you hack at yourself. It can often be fatal. But it is not easy to dispose of. Please be careful, Mr.Okada. It is very dangerous. Once it has taken root in your heart, hatred is the most difficult think in the world to shake off.”