“We'd lived our lives thinking that there was a special way of living for people who had been discarded.”

“Whether it succeeded or not was of secondary importance; first, I had to do it. Then I would experience the fullness of life as I went along. That was my only possible way of living.”

“Shino looked at me straight in the eye and smiled, her face brimming with a kind of inner strength. That strength seemed to gather the beads of perspiration that glistened on her brow, then sprang from her face and leapt across to my heart with a rhythm like ripples on water.”

“Hate is a place where a man who can't stand sadness goes." - Godo”

“If I have to worry about the ants I crush beneath my feet, I couldn't even walk around”

“There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we normally live our lives and we'd sort of like to find out what it is.”

“She liked things that had been written by people who had lived short, ugly, and tragic lives. Or, who at least, were English.”