Novelist: Misfortune teaches us the truth. Your cancer has opened your eyes to your own life. People are fickle and shallow. We only realise how beautiful life is when we face death. And even then, few of us realise it. The worst among us know nothing of life until they die.
Narrator: The best way to protect your place in this world is to do nothing at all. But is this enough? Is this really enough?
Kanji: Dying is very difficult.
Novelist: We have to be greedy for life. They say greed is a vice, but that's outdated. Greed is a virtue, especially greed for enjoying life.
Kanji: Drinking this expensive sake is like paying myself back with poison for the way I lived all these years.
Doctor: What would you do if you only had six months left to live?
Novelist: You're amazing! Rebelling against your past self at this age! That rebellious spirit moves me. You were a slave to your own life. Now you'll become its master. It's our human duty to enjoy life. Wasting it is desecrating God's great gift.
Kanji: I don't know what I've been doing with my life all these years.
Kanji: How beautiful! Truly beautiful. A sunset. I don't think I've really looked at one in 30 years.
Kanji: I can't afford to hate people. I don't have that kind of time.
Kanji: ...I did it all for my son's sake. But as it turned out, my son doesn't seem to give a whit.
Toyo: But you can't blame it all on your son... Not unless he asked you to make a mummy of yourself. My mom gives me the same kind of line sometimes. "The things I've suffered for you." And I'm grateful she had me. But it's not my fault I was born.
