"Tengo went to his bookcase and scanned the spines of his books. He had read many books over the years, but he owned few. He tended to dislike filling his home with possessions. When he finished a book, unless it was something quite special, he would take it to a used book store. He bought only books he knew he was going to read right away, and he would read the ones he cared about very closely, until they were ingrained in his mind."

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" "One thing I wanted to tell you is that I often think of him." Tamaru said. "Not that I want to see him again or anything. I really don't. We wouldn't have anything to talk about, for one thing. It's just that I still have this vivid image of him 'pulling rats out' of blocks of wood with total concentration, and that has remained an important mental landscape for me, a reference point. It teaches me something. Or tries to. People need things like that to go on living-mental landscapes that have meaning for them, even if they can't explain them in words. Part of why we go on living is to come up with explanations for these things. That's what I think." "