“Well, finally, the events I've been through have been tremendously complicated. All kinds of characters have come on the scene, and strange things have happened one after another, to the point where, if I try to think about them in order, I lose track.”

“Now, though, that meadow scene is the first thing that comes back to me. [...] And yet, as clear as the scene may be, no one is in it. No one. Naoko is not there, and neither am I. Where could we have disappeared to? How could such a thing have happened? Everything that seemed so important back then - Naoko, and the self I was then and the world I had then: where could they have all gone? It's true, I can't even bring back her face - not straight away, at least. All I'm left holding is a background, pure scenery, with no people at the front.”

“This layers, like some kind of transparent sponge kind of thing, stands there between Eri Asai and me, and the words that come out of my mouth have to pass through it, and when that happens, the sponge sucks almost all the nutrients right out of them.”

“Well, Mr Katagiri, I have not been frogging all these years for nothing. I keep my eye on the important things in life.”

“Waiting for youranswer is one of the most painful things I have ever been through. Atleast let me know whether or not I hurt you.”

“I don't know if I have the strength to care for Yukiko and the children, I thought. No more visions can help me, weaving special dreams just for me. As far as the eye can see, the void is simply that — a void. I've been in that void before and forced myself to adjust. And now, finally, I end up where I began and I'd better get used to it. No one will weave dreams for me — it is my turn to weave dreams for others. That's what I have to do. Such dreams may have no power, but if my own life is to have any meaning at all, that is what I have to do.Probably.”

“if people lived forever - if they never got any older - if they could just go on living in this world, never dying, always healthy - do you think they'd bother to think hard about things the way we're doing now? i mean, we thing about just about everything, more or less - philosophy, psychology, logic. religion. literature. i kinda think, if there were no such thing as death, that complicated thoughts and ideas like that would never come into the world......people have to think seriously about what it means for them to be alive here and now because they know they're going to die sometime. right? who would think about what it means to be alive if they were just going to go on living forever? why would they have to bother? or even if they should bother, they'd probably just figure, 'oh, well, i've got plenty of time for that. i'll think about it later.' but we can't wait till later. we've got to think about it right this second...nobody knows whats going to happen. so we need death to make us evolve...death is this huge, bright thing, and the bigger and brighter it is, the more we have to drive ourselves crazy thinking about things.”