“The young peoplenowadays – men and women, amateurs and pros – generally fallinto one of two categories: either they don’t know what it isthat’s most important to them, or they know but don’t have thepower to go after it. But this girl’s different. She knows what’smost important to her and she knows how to get it, but shedoesn’t let on what it is. I’m pretty sure it’s not money, orsuccess, or a normal happy life, or a strong man, or some weirdreligion, but that’s about all I can tell you. She’s like smoke: youthink you’re seeing her clearly enough, but when you reach forher there’s nothing there. That’s a sort of strength, I suppose.But it makes her hard to figure out.”

“She's like smoke:you think you're seeing her clearly enough,but when you reach for her there's nothing there”

“All Americans have something lonely about them. I don't know what the reason might be, except maybe that they're all descended from immigrants.”

“I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty five days a year, I was still in elementary school at the time - fifth or sixth grade - but I made up my mind once and for all.”“Wow,” I said. “Did the search pay off?”“That’s the hard part,” said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. “I guess I’ve been waiting so long I’m looking for perfection. That makes it tough.”“Waiting for the perfect love?”“No, even I know better than that. I’m looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.”“I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement.“It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are time in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.”“Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?”“Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. “Now I see, Midori. What a fool I have been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate Mousse? Cheesecake?”“So then what?”“So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.”“Sounds crazy to me.”“Well, to me, that’s what love is…”

“... The type of loneliness where you need to keep struggling to accept a situation is fundamentally different than the sort you know you'll get through if you just hang in there”

“Dixon Steele: You know, when you first walked into the police station, I said to myself, “There she is — the one that’s different. She’s not coy or cute or corny. She’s a good guy — I’m glad she’s on my side. She speaks her mind and she knows what she wants.”Laurel Gray: Thank you, sir. But let me add: I also know what I don’t want — and I don’t want to be rushed.”

“Tell me something, Mari—do you believe in reincarnation?” Mari shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so,” she says. “So you don’t think there’s a life to come?” “I haven’t thought much about it. But it seems to me there’s no reason to believe in a life after this one.” “So once you’re dead there’s just nothing?”“Basically.”“Well, I think there has to be something like reincarnation. Or maybe I should say I’m scared to think there isn’t. I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it.” “Nothingness means there’s absolutely nothing, so maybe there’s no need to understand it or imagine it.” “Yeah, but what if nothingness is not like that? What if it’s the kind of thing that demands that you understand it or imagine it? I mean, you don’t know what it’s like to die, Mari. Maybe a person really has to die to understand what it’s like.” “Well, yeah…,” says Mari. “I get so scared when I start thinking about this stuff,” Korogi says. “I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner. It’s so much easier to just believe in reincarnation. You might be reborn as something awful, but at least you can imagine what you’d look like—a horse, say, or a snail. And even if it was something bad, you might be luckier next time.”