“There’s no way you can kill someone and get to the other side of the experience unchanged.”

“Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.”

“It may be that the fear contains information. Something can be interesting if you get to the other side of that fear.”

“The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.”

“When a war starts people are forced to become soldiers. They carry guns and go to the front lines and have to kill soldiers on the other side. As many as they possibly can. Nobody cares whether you like killing other people or not. It's just something you have to do. Otherwise you're the one who gets killed." Johnnie Walker pointed his index finger at Nakata's chest. "Bang!"”

“Long experience had taught me that absolute silence is the best way. Say something, and it can be misheard. Misunderstood. Misinterpreted. It can get you convicted. It can get you killed. Silence upsets the arresting officer. He has to tell you silence is your right but he hates it if you exercise that right. I was being arrested for murder. But I said nothing.”

“Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know.”

“If you wanted to get yourself killed, there was no better way than to think you knew all the tricks. It took experience to make you realize that the universe could always pull another one out of the bag and throw it at you.”

“Do you believe that the dead can influence the living?… Could you conceive of a superhuman mentality influencing someone from the other side of death?… There is such a one…. Someone, something that reaches out from beyond the grave and fills me with horrible impulses.”

“I guess I was just hoping there might be a way to do things other than the way that ends up with everyone getting killed.”