“Opera lovers may be the narrowest people in the world.”

“I may not be the most likable person in the world, but I try not to upset people.”

“One last word of advice, though, Mr. Okada, though you may not want to hear this. There are things in this world it is better not to know about. Of course, those are the very things that people most want to know about. It's strange.”

“We used to spend hours talking. We never got tired of talking, never raun out of topics - novels, the world, scenery, language. Our conversations were more open and intimate than ane lovers'.”

“When Debussy was seeming to get nowhere with an opera he was composing, he put it this way: "I spent my days pursuing the nothingness -le rien - it creates." My job is to create that void, that rien. Hunting knife”

“I was dying. Like all the other people who live in this world.”

“...most people in the world don't really use their brains to think. And people who don't think are the ones who don't listen to others.”