“As long as there's one person to believe it, there's no story that can't be true.”

“When a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of this world disappear. For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists.”

“A here exists only in relation to a there, not the other way around. There's this only because there's that; if we don't look up, we'll never know what's down. Think of it, boy. We find ourselves only by looking what we're not. You can't put your feet on the ground until you've touched the sky.”

“When you've lived as long as I have, you tend to think you've heardeverything, that there's nothing left that can shock you anymore.You grow a little complacent about your so-called knowledge of the world, and then, every once in a while, something comes along thatjolts you out of your smug cocoon of superiority, that reminds you allover again that you don't understand the first thing about life.”

“At that point, Noriko finally breaks down and begins to cry sobbing into her hands as the floodgates open - this young woman who has suffered in silence for so long, this good woman who refuse to believe she's good, for only the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good in the first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know nothing. They spend their lives forgiving others, but they can't forgive themselves.”

“Stories without endings can do nothing but go on forever, and to be caught in one means that you must die before your part in it is played out.”

“Every time Sachs posed for a picture, he was forced to impersonate himself, to play the game of pretending to be who he was. After a while, it must have had an effect on him. (…) They say that a camera can rob a person of his soul. In this case, I believe it was just the opposite. With this camera, I believe that Sachs’s soul was gradually given back to him.”