“Properly speaking, should any individual ever have exact, clear knowledge of his own core consciousness?""I wouldn't know," I said."Nor would we," said the scientists.”

“I really wanted to see you,” I said.“And I really wanted to see you, too,” she said. “When Icouldn’t see you any more, I realized that. It was as clear as ifthe planets all of a sudden lined up in a row for me. I reallyneed you. You’re a part of me; I’m a part of you. You know,somewhere—I’m not at all sure where—I think I cutsomething’s throat. Sharpening my knife, my heart a stone.”

“Any explanation or logic that explains everything so easily has a hidden trap in it. I'm speaking from experience. Somebody once said if it's something a single book can explain, it's not worth having explained. What I mean is don't leap to any conclusions.”

“You know what I should do?" Hoshino asked excited. "Of course," the cat said. "What'd I tell you? Cats know everything. Not like dogs.”

“But how do you see you?" she asked."Ever read The Brothers Karamazov?" I asked."Once, a long time ago.""Well, toward the end, Alyosha is speaking to a young student named Kolya Krasotkin. And he says, Kolya, you're going to have a miserable future. But overall, you'll have a happy life."Two beers down, I hesitated before opening my third."When I first read that, I didn't know what Alyosha meant," I said. "How was it possible for a life of misery to be happy overall? But then I understood, that misery could be limited to the future.""I have no idea what you're talking about.""Neither do I," I said. "Not yet.”

“I've been lonely for so long. And I've been hurt so deeply. If only I could have met you again a long time ago, then I wouldn't have had to take all these detours to get here.'Tengo shook his head. 'I don't think so. This way is just fine. This is exactly the right time. For both of us. [...] We needed that much time.... to understand how lonely we really were.”

“I was reborn," she said, her hot breath brushing his ear."You were reborn," Tengo said."Because I died once.""You died once," Tengo repeated."On a night when there was a cold rain falling," she said."Why did you die?""So I would be reborn like this.""You would be reborn," Tengo said."More or less," she whispered quietly. "In all sorts of forms.”