[quote] “No, unfortunately, in my case, all that energy was wasted on other things.”
“What other things?”

“On my friends. I had some very close friends, but as it turned out they weren't the sort you could play baseball or kick-the-can with. In fact, playing with them didn't involve moving at all.”

“Were your friends sick?”

“Just the opposite. They were big and strong as a rock. But since they lived in my head, I could only play with them there…”[/quote]

[quote]It was a melodramatic sort of anger.[/quote]

[quote]"A problem has a rhythm of its own, just like a piece of music," the Professor said. "Once you get the rhythm, you get the sense of the problem as a whole, and you can see where the traps might be waiting."[/quote]

[quote]Among the many things that made the Professor an excellent teacher was the fact that he wasn't afraid to say "we don't know." For the Professor, there was no shame in admitting you didn't have the answer, it was a necessary step toward the truth. It was as important to teach us about the unknown or the unknowable as it was to teach us what had already been safely proven.[/quote]

[indent][color=gray]— Yōko Ogawa, [i]The Housekeeper and the Professor[/i][/color][/indent]