“‎Not having time for a person, not being able to sit in silence together with somebody, that's the same as rejecting them, as being scornful about them.”

“Dreams can be of value even if you don’t have an opportunity to turn them into reality.”

“People have faces. […] Spirits don’t have faces. And yet we recognise them. We know who is who. Spirits don’t have eyes or mouths or ears either. And yet they can see and speak and hear. […] The spirits are all around us. […] They’re right here, but we can’t see them.”

“Memory is like glass. A person who has died is still visible, very close. But we can no longer contact each other. Death is mute; it excludes conversations, only allows silence.”

“The forest has been growing for hundreds of years. Each time a child is born, a tree is planted. You could see from his tree how old a person was. The tall and thick tree trunks, which gave the most shade, belonged to people who had already returned to the spirit world. But the trees of the living and the dead stood in the same grove, sought their nourishment from the same soil and the same rain. They stood there waiting for the children that were not yet born, the trees that had not yet been planted. In that way the forest would grow, and the age of the village would be visible for all time. No one could tell from a tree whether someone was dead, only that he had been born.”

“You think you know everything about a person, but the truth often comes as a surprise.”

“Your memories will be a flock of birds, silently flying in the sky. You will see them flying in and see them flying away. The memories will disappear and there will be nothing left.”