The work did not represented what to do with me, I hated going to the office. I felt really oppressed. I had the impression that my real self was shrinking more and more, and that I was going to...

I don't want you to leave again. I can't live without you. I don't want to lose you again. I don't want to hear the words "for a season." Nor "maybe." I thought that. You say that, for a season, we...

It is a pity, but there are things that cannot go back. Once you have taken a step forward, no matter how much you try, you can no longer go back. If they break down, they stay forever.

I got to know her well, and we talked about all sorts of things. We understood each other. You could even say I loved her.

It was as if - this something I thought of only later, of course - she was gently peeling back one layer after another that covered a person's heart, a very sensual feeling.

I can't build a simple shelf. I have no idea how to change an oil filter on a car. I can't even stick a stamp on an envelope straight. And I'm always dialling the wrong number. But I have come up with...

She already exists in my memories. He has left my side. I was here, but it has disappeared. And there is no middle ground. Where there is no place for the commitment there can be no middle ground. The...

What would tomorrow bring? I wondered. Both hands on the wheel, I closed my eyes. I didn't feel like I was in my own body; my body was just a lonely, temporary container I happened to be borrowing....

Then I didn't know. I did not know that he was able to hurt someone so deeply that he never replaced himself. Sometimes there are people who can hurt others for the mere fact of existing

Is that what you see in my eyes, that you know nothing about me?Nothing is written in your eyes. I replied.It is written in my eyes and i see the reflection in yours

In order to pin down reality as realilty, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created within...

Rain falls and the flowers bloom. No rain, they wither up. Bugs are eaten by lizards, lizards are eaten by birds. But in the end, every one of them dies. They die and dry up. One generation dies, and...

Why are you staring at me? she'd ask.'Cause you're pretty, I'd reply.You're the first one who's ever said that.I'm the only one who knows, I'd tell her. And believe me, I know.

{...} Shimamoto had her own little world within her. A world that was for her alone, one I could not enter.

People want to be bowled over by something special. Nine times out of ten you can forget, but that tenth time, that peak experience, is what people want. That's what can move the world. That's art.

You're here," I continued. "At least you look as if you're here. But maybe you aren't. Maybe it's just your shadow. The real you may be someplace else. Or maybe you already disappeared, a long, long...

Start making excuses and there's no end to it. I can't live that kind of life.

I'm scared, she said. These days I feel like a snail without a shell. I'm scared too, I said. I feel like a frog without any webs. She looked up and smiled. Wordlessly we walked over to a shaded part...

Once I began a book, I couldn't put it down. It was like an addiction; I read while I ate, on the train, in bed until late at night, in school, where I'd keep the book hidden so I could read during...

Another person's life is that person's life. You can't take responsibility.

What we needed were not words and promises but the steady accumulation of small realities.

Things that have form will all disappear. But certain feelings stay with us forever.

Probably.Again with the probablys.A world full of probablys, she said.

Hajime," she began, "the sad truth is that some things can't go backwards. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back to the way they were. If one little thing goes awry,...

We were, the two of us, still fragmentary beings, just beginning to sense the presence of an unexpected, to be-aquired reality that would fill us and make us whole.

Once she was out of the car and gone, my world was suddenly hollow and meaningless.

I would never see her again, except in memory. She was here, and now she's gone. There is no middle ground. Probably is a word that you may find south of the border. But never, ever west of the sun.

No one could say how long that life would last. Whatever has form can disappear in an instant.

She was, if anything, on the plain side, at least not the type to attract men wherever she went. But there was something in her face that was meant for me alone. Everytime we met, I took a good look...

Inside that darkness, i saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it. The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don't know it is...