“Stop, people! Don't make me hurt you! What chance have you against one who can smash robots?”

“You don't know me, but I know about you...I can't make you live longer. I can't stop you from hurting. But I can give you one wish, as someone did for me.”

“If you are afraid to take a chance, take one anyway. What you don't do can create the same regrets as the mistakes you make.”

“You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.”

“Mmmm, as I recall, if you go around telling people that they are downtrodden, you tend to make two separate enemies: the people who are doing the downtreading and have no intention of stopping, and the people who are downtrodden, but nevertheless -- people being who they are -- don't want to know. They can get quite nasty about it.”

“It feels like ancient history," said Naoko. But anyhow, sorry about last night. I don't know, I was a bundle of nerves. I really shouldn't have done that after you came here all the way from Tokyo.""Never mind," I said. "Both of us have a lot of feelings we need to get out in the open. So if you want to take those feelings and smash somebody with them, smash me. Then we can understand each other better.""So if you understand me better, what then?""You don't get it, do you?" I said. "It's not a question of 'what then.' Some people get a kick out of reading railroad timetables and that's all they do all day. Some people make huge model boats out of matchsticks. So what's wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?”