Quotes from book

After Dark

“It's not as if our lives are simply divided into light and dark. There's a shadowy middle ground. Recognizing and understanding the shadows is what a healthy intelligence does.”

“Between the time the last train leaves and the first train arrives, the place changes: it's not the same as in daytime.”

“Memory is so crazy! It's like we've got these drawers crammed with tons of useless stuff. Meanwhile, all the really important things we just keep forgetting, one after the other.”

“If only I could fall
sound asleep and wake up in my old reality!”

“I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel”

“It's my motto for life. 'Walk slowly; drink lots of water.”

“Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action?”

“But what seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else.”

“People with places to go and people with no place to go; people with a purpose and people with no purpose; people trying to hold time back and people trying to urge it forward”

“Her pupils have taken on a lonely hue, like grey clouds reflected in a calm lake.”

“I'm kind of a low-key guy. The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish--cole slaw or French fries or a Wham! backup singer.”

“Of what value is a civilization that can't toast a piece of bread as ordered?”

“The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.”

“And her sleep was too long and deep for that:so deep that she left her normal reality behind.”

“The silence is so deep it hurts our ears.”

“Time moves in it special way in the middle of the night.”

“Sometimes I feel as if I'm racing with my own shadow, Korogi says. But that's one thing I'll never be able to outrun. Nobody can shake off their own shadow.”

“So once you're dead there's just nothing?
Mari: Basically…
Korogi: I get so scared when I start thinking about this stuff. I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner. It's so much easier to just believe in reincarnation.”

“If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price.”