- Ayako: How did it feel when you were facing certain death?
- Kinji Kameda: Everyone in the world suddenly seemed so dear to me.
- Ayako: Everyone in the world?
- Kinji Kameda: Each and every person I'd ever known. Everyone I'd ever passed on the street. And not just people - the puppy I'd thrown a rock at as a child. Why hadn't I been kinder?
- [last lines]
- Kaoru: I don't want to talk about it. I promised you I'd keep an eye on him and tell you what he was doing. But it was too...
- Ayako: Was it that awful?
- Kaoru: All I know, is that I'll remember what a good man he was.
- Ayako: If only we could all love as he did - without hatred. What a fool I've been. I was the idiot.
- Subtitle: In this world, goodness and idiocy are often equated. This story tells of the destruction of a pure soul by a faithless world.
- Ayako: Do you have any idea what sort of person Mr. Kameda is?
- Taeko Nasu: I certainly do. I daresay I know far better than you.
- Ayako: That's a lie! You couldn't possibly know.
- Taeko Nasu: Why not?
- Ayako: Why not? Because you only ever think of yourself. Drunk on your own misery, you don't see the grief you cause in others.
- [first lines]
- [Kameda's cries in his sleep wakes himself up and others on the train, including Denkichi Akama]
- Denkichi Akama: That was some scream.
- Kinji Kameda: Forgive me. I was dreaming.
- Denkichi Akama: Dreaming? Sounded like you were being murdered.
- Kinji Kameda: I was - about to be shot. It's a recurring nightmare of mine. You see, I was convicted as a war criminal.
- Denkichi Akama: What ails you?
- Kinji Kameda: Idiocy. They call it epileptic dementia. I had so many fits that I eventually became an idiot.
- Denkichi Akama: An idiot?
- Denkichi Akama: [to Kameda] You really are a strange one! I get a peculiar feeling looking at you. A tender feeling, like I'm looking at a newborn lamb. Well, I'm off. The world's full of wolves. Be careful.
- Takako: I wrote her and told her everything I just told you.
- Mutsuo Kayama, the secretary: You bitch!
- Mutsuo Kayama, the secretary: Allow me to introduce Mr. Kameda, a very interesting fellow. A relative of Mr. Ono's.
- Taeko Nasu: Forgive me. I took you for a servant.
- Kinji Kameda: Not at all. I...
- Taeko Nasu: But how do you know me? And why did you look so surprised when you saw me?
- Kinji Kameda: I felt - as if I'd seen your eyes somewhere before.
- Tohata: There's something I must tell you.
- Taeko Nasu: You're very kind, but I prefer to keep drinking.
- Servant: A Mr. Kameda has arrived.
- Ono, Ayako's father: Mr. Kameda?
- Mutsuo Kayama, the secretary: He met Taeko at my place today.
- Taeko Nasu: I asked you to bring him. Why didn't you? Show him in.
- Servant: Yes, Ma'am.
- Ono, Ayako's father: Why him of all people?
- Taeko Nasu: You mean, because he's an idiot? I don't believe he is. On the contrary, he may be a good deal more astute than either of you. Especially at seeing into another person's heart.
- Kinji Kameda: He was barely 20 years old with the face of a boy. He seemed as if in a trance, tied there to that post. Suddenly he began to tremble. He looked over at us, his eyes filled with reproach. They were the eyes of a man who had suffered alone, day and night, for a very long time. They seemed to be crying out, "Why must I suffer like this?" What torment he must have endured!
- Taeko Nasu: I'm leaving here tonight - with nothing.
- Tohata: No, Taeko! I was wrong. I've been such a fool.
- Taeko Nasu: I've had enough. I'm no longer your 14-year-old mistress.
- Kinji Kameda: You've suffered alone for so long that it feels wrong if you're not in pain. You are ill. You need a kind nurse. I'll nurse you back to health.
- Kinji Kameda: When I first saw your picture, you seemed to be calling to me.
- Taeko Nasu: You see I've been waiting for somebody like you. Ever since I began this awful life as a kept woman, I hoped and prayed imagining someone like you. Hoping that a good, honest, kind man would appear. "Taeko, it's not your fault. I still respect you." How I longed to hear those words! But instead it was always just him. He'd do lewd and shameful things to me and then leave. I can't take it anymore. I'd rather die in the street than go on living like this. Yet, I'm afraid the life you envision for us is a fairy tale.
- Satoko, Ayako's mother: I really misjudged him. Why give him the ranch if he's going to spend his money on that hussy? And what bother's me that most is how you did it. Wasn't there a more straightforward way? Why bring that Karube in as an agent? And you, acting so secretively, as if you were the guilty one! And Kameda could have at least stopped by to thank you. Perhaps he's an idiot after all.
- Denkichi Akama: You love her because you feel sorry for her. But I hate her as much as I love her! Sometimes I think it'd be easier if she were dead. She hates me too, with all her might! Once I beat her black and blue for the way she looks down on me.
- Denkichi Akama: [to Kameda] Want me to spell it out? She's in love with another man and that man is you! It's the hand of fate! She can never marry you. Why? Because she doesn't want to ruin you! So she'll ruin me and drag me down to hell with her!
- Satoko, Ayako's mother: [to Kameda about Ayako] I wonder how she feels about you. She has more disdain for you than praise. She calls you an invalid and an idiot. But don't be offended. She really takes after me - willful with a touch of craziness. If she likes someone, she'll call him names and teases him.
- Kinji Kameda: What would you do if your closest friend, as close as a sibling, were thrown in a cage and brutally beaten? You'd be miserable. You'd wish to be beaten instead, right?
- Kinji Kameda: You only know that she was a kept woman, that it began when she was only a child, and that it traumatized her. But there's more to her unhappiness than that. If you take a piece of candy from a sensitive child, she'll throw a tantrum and stomp on the candy she has left. That's how she is. It drives me mad to think how things might be if she weren't like that. She thinks her happiness will always be tainted by that wound, so she crushes whatever happiness comes her way.
- Satoko, Ayako's mother: Did anything happen that might make a mother worry?
- Kinji Kameda: I don't think so.
- Satoko, Ayako's mother: Then you can meet again.
- Ayako: You really are a mystery. You suddenly show up during a blizzard to pay a visit. Nothing you do ever fails to surprise. You know how, in late March, the clouds suddenly part after a blizzard? Blue skies, then a crack of thunder. That's exactly how you are.
- Ayako: I'm like a bride-to-be, sealed up, and on display in a bottle. Then it's straight from the bottle to altar.
- Ono, Ayako's father: What's it matter anyway? That language of flowers is foreign. It doesn't apply in Japan.
- Denkichi Akama: Why didn't you answer her question? Are you happy or not? I see. Of course you can't answer.
- Denkichi Akama: Frightened of a mere girl?
- Taeko Nasu: Yes, I am. I'm afraid to even look at her. She's everything I ever dreamed of being. She possesses everything I've ever lost. - - She represents an ideal for me.
- Taeko Nasu: I want her to have the kind of life I dreamed of. But...
- Denkichi Akama: But if you meet her, you may not like her.
- Ayako: You have no right to meddle in our affairs. Stop coming between us! Stop playing the martyr at our expense! You act as if you're Violetta from "La Traviata"!
- Taeko Nasu: You're terrified that he might love me more. That's why you're here.
- Ayako: You're wrong. It's pity he feels for you, not love.
- Taeko Nasu: It amounts to the same thing. But I know I have no right to accept his love.
- Denkichi Akama: She has a beautiful body! Take a look in the morning. I spent all day by her side. I've never seen such a beautiful woman.
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