“She was hearing everything that went on in his heart, like a person who can trace a map with his fingertip and conjure up vivid, living scenery.”

“She curled up and pressed her cheek against his chest. Her ear was right above his heart. She was listening to his thoughts. "I need to know this," Aomame said. "That we're in the same world, seeing the same things.”

“From the girl who sat before me now...surged a fresh and physical life force. She was like a small animal that has popped into the world with the coming of spring. Her eyes moved like an independent organism with joy, laughter, anger, amazement, and despair. I hadn't seen a face so vivid and expressive in ages, and I enjoyed watching it live and move.”

“His heart, like mine, was ticking off the time allotted to his small restless body.”

“How can the mind be so imperfect?" she says with a smile.I look at my hands. Bathed in the moonlight, they seem like statues, proportioned to no purpose."It may well be imperfect," I say, "but it leaves traces. And we can follow those traces, like footsteps in the snow.""Where do the lead?""To oneself," I answer. "That's where the mind is. Without the mind, nothing leads anywhere."I look up. The winter moon is brilliant, over the Town, above the Wall."Not one thing is your fault," I comfort her.”

“Everything was too sharp and clear, so that I could never tell where to start- the way a map that shows too much can sometimes be useless.”

“No matter where i go, i still end up me. What's missing never changes. The scenery may change, but i'm still the same incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that i can never satisfy. I think that lack itself is as close as i'll come to defining myself.”