“I walked around Soho's street for over an hour, running into familiar faces but never once stopping to chat. It was then that I felt something discomforting and comforting all at once. I didn't want to be here, in this city, anymore.”

“But I didn't walk a single step. I stopped a lot to stretch, but I never walked. I didn't come here to walk. I came to run. That's the reason-the only reason-I flew all the way to the northern tip of Japan. No matter how slow I might run, I wasn't about to walk. That was the rule.”

“I don’t have to walk my dog anymore. I walked him all at once.”

“All at once I felt so vain, like a girl posturing for the crowds as she walks along, only to discover the street is empty.”

“Maybe it was because I didn't want to look at my life and see what is missing. Once you identify what you lack, then it's all you see anymore. Wanting something I couldn't have would only lead to unhappiness, so I tried to be content with what I had.”

“It was a lovely landscape. It was idyllic, poetical, and it inspired me. I felt good and noble. I felt I didn't want to be sinful and wicked anymore. I would come and live here, and never do any more wrong, and lead a blameless, beautiful life, and have silver hair when I got old, and all that sort of thing.”