Key Quotes

Chapter 1

The quickest route from Ishigami's apartment to his workplace was due south. It was only a quarter mile or so to Seicho Garden Park. He worked at the private high school just before the park. He was a teacher. He taught math.

She thought back, trying to remember something that might have clued her in to his interest, but came up with nothing. He was like the thin crack in her apartment wall. She knew it was there, but she never paid it that much attention. It just wasn't worth paying attention to.

Chapter 2

Yasuko stared at Ishigami's mouth as he talked. His voice was calm, never rising, his expression never changing. I'll bet that exactly how he talks when he's giving a lesson to his students, thought Yasuko, her mind wandering nervously

I have to protect them, thought Ishigami. He would never be this close to so beautiful a woman ever again in his life. He was sure of that. He had to summon every last bit of his strength and knowledge to prevent any calamity from happening to her.

Still, it was possible to see that this man had been a real looker in his youth. Though he had clearly gain a little bit of weight in recent years, his was the kind of face women found easy to like.

And Yasuko fell in love with him. When Ishigami thought this, it was like a bubble poppsed inside him and envy spread throughout his chest. He shook his head, embarrased at his own capacity to have such feelings at a time like this.

Yasuko sighed. To Ishigami it sounded sexual, almost like a moan, and his heart fluttered. I won't let you down, he thought, steeling his resolve anew.

What they needed was a perfect defense based on perfect logic.

Whatever you do, don't panice, he told himself. Panicking wouldn't help them reach a solution. And he was sure their problem had a soluion. Every problem had one.

Ishigami closed his eyes. It was a habit he had developed when confronting particularly ornery mathematical challenges - all had to do was shut out all information from the outside world, and the formulas would begin to take shape. Except this time, it wasn't formulas that filled his head.

"An alibi? But I don't have an alibi."

"That's why we have to create one," Ishigami said. He drew on the jacket he had just taken from the body. "Trust me, logical thinking will get us through this.

Chapter 5

"No one can know the mind of the Buddha,"Yukawa said with a wry chuckle.

"That's just it. Normally, when detectives come calling, you expect people to be surprised, or a little flustered, or give some reaction at least, but it was as if he was carved out of stone. It was like he couldn't be bothered to react to anything external."

"He's not interested in anything but math. Not that he's without any charms, of course. He was a nice enough guy in his own way..."

Chapter 10

A feeling rose in side him, making him queasy, as though an elaborate formula he'd thought was perfect was now giving false results because of an unpredictable variable.

Chapter 12

Yasuko and Kudo hadn't been together for very long. He couldn't help but make note of how that fact put him at ease.

Still, it made his entire body hot with same to think that someone else, a third party, had noticed first. How they must have laughted to see an ugly man like him head over heels for a beautiful woman like her.

"Maybe your overthinking this. That guy might be a genius mathematician, but he's certainly a novice murderer."

"They're the same thing,"Yukawa stated simply. "Murder probably comes even easier to him."

Chapter 13

"Even if Togashi had been giving her a hard time and she had gone to her neighbor for help, Ishigami would've thought of a different solution for the problem. Murder would've been his last choice"

"Why, because he's not vicious enough?"

"It's not a question of temperament. Murder isn't the most logical way to escape a difficult situation. It only leads to a different difficult situation. Ishigami would never engage in something so clearly counterproductive. Of course," he had added,"the converse is also true. That is, he's quite capable of committing an atrocity, provided that it's the most logical course of action."

Chapter 14

"They're not tough, though. I merely take advantage of the blind spots created when students assumed too much."

"Blind spots?"

"For instance, I give them a question that looks like a geometry problem but it is in fact an algebra problem..."

"How many times do I have to tell you that in order to examine something you have to do more than just look at it? You can't simply say you were satisfied with an experiment because you got the results you were expected. I don't care how you feel about the experiment. And not everything was really expected, was it? I want you to really look at the experiment and discover something in it that has meaning for you. Just - think a little more before you write, please?"

Chapter 15

He calculated that it would take another twenty years to complete his work on this particular theory. Possibly even longer. It was the kind of insurmountable problem worthy of an entire lifetime's devotion. And of all the mathematiciains in the world, he was in the best position to crack it.

How wonderful it would be to forget everything else, all other considerations, all the time sinks of daily life, and just work on that problem!, Ishigami daydreamed, as he had so often before. Whenever he considered the dreary truth that he might die before finishing, it chafed at him to do anything but work on it.

Yukawa nodded, satisfied. "Too bad it's possible for you and me ever to be off the clock. Like it or not, we're stuck in the cogs of society. Take them away, and our clocks spin out of control. Or rather, we are the cogs in the clockworks. No matter how much we might think we are off standin gon our own, we're not. It gives us a certain measure of security, to be sure, but it also means we're not entirely free. I've heard that lots of the homeless don't want to go back to living regular lives."

"Okay, the world needs it cogs, all of them; and even a cog may say how it gets used. In fact, only a cog may determine its eventual meaning in the system. That's what I wanted to tell you," Yukawa said, staring Ishigami in the face.