"The way I see it, there's two kinds of crying. People cry because they feel sorry for themselves. And people cry because they're sad. People who feel sorry for themselves are like children who want something done for them. They want their big brother or mother or next-door neighbor to help them." Suzu just looked at him. "It's because, in situations like this, children don't have any way of protecting themselves. That's why I say they cry like children."

"People treat unhappiness like a competition. Of course, the dead are the most unfortunate of all. But when you feel compelled to pity another person, it somehow makes you feel like the loser. Believing that you're the most pitiable person on the face of the earth isn't so different from believing you're the most blessed. Feeling sorry for yourself and resenting all others, you run away from what you really should be doing."

"In the end, the only thing that truly brings us happiness is the effort we expend to put suffering behind us and the effort we make to become happy."

"When things really get that bad, people do whatever they can to escape it. If it's not bad enough to do that, Suzu, you weren't suffering enough to want to run away." "But..." "I don't know how to describe it, but you know that feeling when you want to die and you know that fighting on won't do any good?" "That's, um..." "Talk is easy. Suzu, whatever you suffered wasn't bad enough to try to escape or die trying. Nobody's gonna feel sorry for people who drown themselves in their own misfortunes. After all, living your own life is a full-time job. If you had someone sidling up to you all the time and wanting you to feel all sorry for them, you'd get sick of them. Don't you think?"