Banana Yoshimoto

"Nakajima's presence didn't put any pressure on me, either. Quite the opposite: there was a warmth in the core of my chest when he was around."

"Things that don't matter at all to one person can hurt another so deeply it seems as bad as dying."

"Actually, time had always been passing. I had just managed to avoid thinking about it very much. It would be hard for me to recapture that feeling—life wasn’t so easy anymore. Small things pricked my heart. In those early days, I lived in a world of overwhelming sensations; it was like I had just fallen out of love."