“The shrill witch-hunter voices of the showbiz correspondents would bring up every last bit left in your stomach from the night before”

“Grasping the doorknob, Tengo turned around one last time and was shocked to see a single tear running down from his father's eye. It shone a dull silver color under the ceiling's fluorescent light. To release that tear, his father must have squeezed every bit of strength from what little emotion he still had left.”

“There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night.”

“I’m not asking for sympathy, but it would be nice if you could give me a bit more in the way of a response. Other than those cold interjections of yours—ohs and ums. How about a conjunction? A conjunction would be nice. A yet or a but.”

“No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that’s stolen from us - that’s snatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence.I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do. To dream, to live in the world of dreams - just as Sumire said. But it doesn’t last forever. Wakefulness always comes to take me back.”

“Being active every day makes it easier to hear that inner voice.”

“The end of my penis is still a bit sore and stings a little when I take a leak. The tip’s red. My fresh-from-the-foreskin cock is still plenty young and tender. Condensed sexual fantasies, Prince’s slippery voice, quotes from all kinds of books—the whole confused mess swirls around in my brain, and my head feels like it’s about to burst.”