“Like my hairstyle?" she asked."It's great.""How great?""Great enough to knock down all the trees in all the forests of the world.”

“Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That’s it. That’s my heart.”

“How much do you love me?' Midori asked.'Enough to melt all the tigers in the world to butter,' I said.”

“My head is like some ridiculous barn packed full of stuff Iwant to write about,” she said. “Images, scenes, snatches ofwords … in my mind they’re all glowing, all alive. Write! theyshout at me. A great new story is about to be born I can feel it.It’ll transport me to some brand-new place. Problem is, once Isit at my desk and put them all down on paper, I realizesomething vital is missing. It doesn’t crystallize—no crystals,just pebbles. And I’m not transported anywhere.”

“Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It's like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. So stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they're supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course.”

“When he woke up the next day, the world was still there, and things were already moving forward, like the great karmic wheel of Indian mythology that kills every living thing in its path.”

“Not just beautiful, though — the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me. What I’ve up till now, what I’m going to do — they know it all. Nothing gets past their watchful eyes. As I sit there under the shining night sky, again a violent fear takes hold of me. My heart’s pounding a mile a minute, and I can barely breathe. All these millions of stars looking down on me, and I’ve never given them more than a passing thought before. Not just the stars — how many other things haven’t I noticed in the world, things I know nothing about?”