A question wells up inside me, a question so big it blocks my throat and makes it hard to breathe. Somehow I swallow it back, finally choosing another. 'Are memories such an important thing?'It depends,' she replies, and closes her eyes. 'In some cases, they're the most important thing there is.

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

Something will work out tomorrow, I thought. And if not, then tomorrow I'll do some thinking. Ob—la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on.

Every once in a while she'll get worked up and cry like that. But that's ok. She's letting her feelings out. The scary thing is not being able to do that. Then your feelings build up and harden and die inside. That's when you're in big trouble.

You can have tons of talent, but it won't necessarily keep you fed. If you have sharp instincts, through, you'll never go hungry.

What alternative is there to the media’s “Us” versus “Them”? The danger is that if it is used to prop up this “righteous” position of “ours” all we will see from now on are ever more exacting and minute analyses of the “dirty” distortions in “their” thinking. Without some flexibility in our definitions we’ll remain forever stuck with the same old knee-jerk reactions, or worse, slide into complete apathy.

Or maybe that’s what it’s all about: this religion’s substance is its lack of substance. In McLuhanesque terms, the medium is the message. Some people might find that cool.”“McLuhanesque?”“Hey, look, even I read a book now and then,” Ayumi protested. “McLuhan was ahead of his time. He was so popular for a while that people tend not to take him seriously, but what he had to say was right.”“In other words, the package itself is the contents. Is that it?”“Exactly. The characteristics of the package determine the nature of the contents, not the other way around.

I never had what it takes to make a first-rate anything.''That's wrong,' she declared. 'Everyone must have one thing that they can excel at. It's just a matter of drawing it out, isn't it?' But school doesn't know how to draw it out. It crushes the gift. It's no wonder most people never get to be what they want to be. They just get ground down.

I dream, sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.

Maybe you didn't want to get married, or get tied down?'Tsukuru shook his head. 'No, I don't think that was it. I'm the sort of person who craves stability.