“To accept the world as boring or accept oneself as boring? Which is really more agreeable? There's bound to be some amount of ambiguity and uncertainty.”

“Essentially, people live in one of two ways. Either they live in awareness of their own worthlessness, or they live in their awareness of the worthlessness of the world. Two ways. Either you allow your value to be absorbed by the world, or you chisel away at the world's value and make it your own. Which should take precedence, the value of the world your own value?”

“Um, where are we headed now?""Heaven. Or maybe Hell. I forget.""They're totally different.""Yup, totally different. They're complete opposites. So we're bound to end up at one of them.”

“We have learnt a lesson: words written in books, all of them, are lies. There are no exceptions. Words written on papers are all deceitful.If we put it in a more proper manner, counting non-fiction works, then things like documents, reports, and reviews that are recorded are also deceitful.There’s nothing but deceit.Don’t believe in the for-sale literature.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. In case that anyone besides big-headed Near or the deluded murderer is reading these notes, then I shall at least perform the basic courtesy of introducing myself, here at the end of the prologue, I am your narrator, your navigator, your storyteller. For anyone else but those two, my identity may be of no interest to you, but I am the world's runner-up, the best dresser that died like a dog, Mihael Keehl. I once called myself Mello and was addressed by that name, but that was a long time ago.Good memories and nightmares.”

“Every mystery novel I ever read, the great detective was such an arrogant fuck you could replace 70% of his dialogue with 'Are you stupid?' and the conversation would still make sense.”

“Naomi Misora, are you familiar with the murder investigation going in Los Angeles as we speak?"[...]"I am not so skilled that I can keep track of all the murder investigations happening in Los Angeles.""Oh? I am."He'd returned her sarcasm with a boast.”