All she was worth

The calendar said it was spring, but the trees in the park didn't know it yet.

"He said there are people in this world who can never be happy with what other people do."

"Yes?"

"And when they see something they don't like, they just go and smash it. Then, later, they come up with a reason. So if Tazaki gives some excuse about why he killed Blockhead, we don't have to listen. It doesn't matter what he says, only what he did."

So why does a snake shed its skin, he says?"

"A snake?"

"Yeah. It takes a lot of effort to do that. So why does it-do it?"

Tamotsu jumped in ahead of Honma. "So it can grow another."

Tomie cackled. "Wrong. So it can grow legs. The thing is, snakes get on okay without legs, but they look around and see everybody else has them. So they get the idea they've got to have them too.

A rotten business, thought Honma, digging up the memories people have worked hard to forget. But dig he must.

"I told her, Take a good look in the mirror,'" Kurata said in a shaky voice. " 'You're evil.'"

A name only exists because another person calls you by it

A name only exists because another person calls you by it. If someone had cared for her, she'd never have tossed her name away like an old tire. There's love in a name.

And so the dead leave their traces in the living, much as shed clothes retain someone's body heat.

And to look was to want, preferably right there, on the spot.

Oh—thought Honma—he remembered the money. He might curse and swear and blow his top, but when all was said and done, for him the bottom line was money. A true banker