On one occasion, the students were asked in what natural form they would choose to be reborn. They excitedly cried out the names of different animals. When Yoshie's turn came, as his aunt Ineko would remind him for the rest of her life, he said he'd like to be turned into sand. And not just any old sand, he specified: the kind at the bottom of the ocean, so that no one could tread on him.

…en serio, pienso que para saber dónde quiere estar uno necesita ir a lugares distintos, conocer cosas, gente, palabras nuevas (¿eso es viajar o escapar?,preguntó el organillero), buena pregunta, déjeme pensar, a ver, es las dos cosas, también se viaja para escapar, eso no es malo. Tampoco es lo mismo huir que mirar hacia delante

History shows that people are as changeable as rivers.

Perhaps farewells create new territories, or they send us back to the only territory that truly belongs to us, that of solitude.

I'm afraid there are two kinds of alienation: one is the exploited worker's, the other that of the worker on holiday. The first has no time to think. The second can only think, and that is his sentence.

I wonder whether, perhaps without realizing it, we seek out the books we need to read. Or whether books themselves, which are intelligent entities, detect their readers and catch their eye. In the end, every book is the I Ching. You pick it up, open it, and there it is, there you are.

..when questioned about their favorite techniques or their best loved authors, writers will talk incessantly, in the same way the sick become particularly garrulous when we inquire after their ailments; the difference being that writers can't help talking about something that saves them, whereas the sick can't help talking about the thing that is dragging them under.

... it's a bad sign when someone drinks a lot and doesn't laugh.

Some men are brilliant talkers, I've met many like that. But almost none of them know when to be silent. Most of my female friends confuse the tough guys with the silent types. I think that's a movie myth. The worst examples of male aggression I've come across have been intolerably verbal.

Love and translation look alike in their grammar. To love someone implies transforming their words into ours. Making an effort to understand the other person and, inevitably, to misinterpret them. To construct a precarious language together.