The better you were able to imagine what you wanted to imagine, the farther you could flee from reality.

There are symbolic dreams-dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities-realities that symbolize a dream.

...All without any more sound than flipping over a playing card. And sitting in this limo, compared to my fifteen-year-old Volkswagen Beetle I'd bought off a friend, was as quiet as sitting at the bottom of a lake wearing earplugs.

I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.

Because sometimes I have a need for human warmth, I answered honestly. Sometimes, if I can't feel something like the warmth of a woman's skin, I get so lonely I can't stand it.

I don't deserve a girl like Hatsumi,' Nagasawa once said to me. I had to agree with him.