“Nothing in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness.”

“There is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person's heart.”

“Perhaps most people in the world aren’t trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It’s all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real pickle. You’d better remember that. People actually prefer not being free?”

“Noboru Wataya is a person who belongs to a world that is the exact opposite of yours... In a world where you are losing everything, Mr.Okada, Noboru Wataya is gaining everything. In a world where you are rejected, he is accepted. And the opposite is just as true. Which is why he hates you so intensely.”

“People lose fifty million skin cells every day. The cells get scraped off and turn into invisible dust, and disappear into the air. Maybe we are nothing but skin cells as far as the world is concerned.”

“Everyone who has something is afraid of losing it, and people with nothing are worried they'll forever have nothing. Everyone is the same.”

“Our life here was just a momentary illusion, and someday reality would yank us back to the world we came from.”