“Karen told me about an old woman who was the last surviving inhabitant of one of the Hermit Islands. She was the only one left who could speak her tribe's language, but the anthropologists didn't realize it and never bothered to learn it from her. When the old woman died, the language died with her.”

“She protected herself by making herself believe no-one else could ever really understand her.”

“That's why she keeps her nails long, she says, to be able to scratch and claw.”

“Our language has lost its ability to convey the spontaneous.”

“No one can help me find answers, least of all someone who claims he's found a solution to life.”

“My cynicism continuously undermines her faith in her own ability to master her moods.”

“I wondered whether the loss of one's sight would deprive a person also of the memory of everything that he had seen before. If so, the man would no longer be able to see even in his dreams. if not, if only the eyeless could still see through their memory, it would not be too bad. The world seemed to be pretty much the same everywhere, and even though people differed from one another, just as animals and trees did, one should know fairly well what they looked like after seeing them for years. I had lived only seven years, but I remembered a lot of things. when I closed my eyes, many details cam back still more vividly. who knows, perhaps without his eyes the plowboy would start seeing an entirely new, more fascinating world.”