“She could not help but feel that paying money to take ownership of a living organism was inappropriate.”

“Here," he said, "get yourself some healthy food. You look awful." I said he had done more than enough for me and that I couldn't accept money on top of everything else, but he refused to take it back. "It's not money," he said, "it's my feelings. Don't think about it too much, just take it." All I could do was thank him and accept the money.”

“She lived frugally, but her meals were the only things on which she deliberately spent her money. She never compromised on the quality of her groceries, and drank only good-quality wines.”

“The third dream was hard to put into words. It was a rambling, incoherent dream without any setting. All that was there was a feeling of being in motion. Aomame was ceaselessly moving through time and space It didn't matter when or where this was All that mattered was this movement. Everything was fluid, and a specific meaning was born of that fluidity. But as she gave herself up to it, she found her body growing transparent. She could see through her hands to the other side. Her bones, organs, and womb became visible. At this rate she might very well no longer exist. After she could no longer see herself, Aomame wondered what could possibly come then. She had no answer.”

“No matter what form the relationship might take, he was the only person she could picture sharing her life with.”

“There's that kind of money in the world. It aggravates you to have it, makes you miserable to spend it, and you hate yourself when it's gone. And when you hate yourself, you feel like spending money. Except there's no money left. And no hope.”

“here she is, all mine, trying her best to give me all she can. How could I ever hurt her? But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.”