“I personally feel that a box, far from being a dead end, is an entrance to another world. I don't know to where, but an entrance to somewhere, some other world.”

“It was perhaps relief and confidence stemming from the opportunity to tempt you into being my accomplice, however indirectly, in the lonely work of producing the mask. For me, whatever you may say, you are the most important "other person." No, I do not mean it in a negative sense. I meant that the one who must first restore the roadway, the one whose name I had to write on the first letter, was first on my list of "others." (Under any circumstances, I simply did not want to lose you. To lose you would be symbolic of losing the world.)”

“But for some reason I have not yet become a fish. - The Box Man, p.36”

“I don't think there is any point in continuing writing. Since I have neither killed nor been killed, there's nothing further to explain. (Box Man, p. 38)”

“When I look at small things, I think I shall go on living: drops of rain, leather gloves shrunk by being wet...When I look at something too big, I want to die: the Diet Building, or a map of the world...”

“The most frightening thing in the world is to discover the abnormal in that which is closest to us.”

“Suddenly a sorrow the color of dawn welled up in him. They might as well lick each other's wounds. But they would lick forever, and the wounds would never heal, and in the end their tongues would be worn away.”