“Something inside me burned bright when he said that. A hell of a lot of people had seen me last night, but only one person had noticed the tiny details. Only one person has been close enough to see what really mattered. And that person was still standing with me now.”

“I make art for one person and one person only. And as soon as I find that one person, I sure hope he has a lot of wall space, because he’ll be getting a lot of art from me.”

“But tomorrow I'll be a different person, never again the person I was. Not that anyone will notice after I'm back in Japan. On the outside nothing will be different. But something inside has burned up and vanished. Blood has been shed, and something inside me is gone. Head down, without a word, that something makes its exit. The door opens; the door shuts. The light goes out. This is the last day for the person I am right now. The very last twilight. When dawn comes, the person I am won't be here anymore. Someone else will occupy this body.”

“Being myself is the one thing that people would want to see out of me, they don't want to see me being the fake person that the world wants me to be, all they want to see is the real me, the real person that is inside of me.”

“The person I am now, compared with the person in the dream, has been baffled and defeated and only supposes he enjoys a full life. In the dreams, I see what a full life really consists of, and it is not what I really have.”

“Some doctors say a person who has only had same-sex attractions is, like, a zero. A person who has only had opposite-sex attractions is, like, a ten. He says most people fall between one and nine.”