I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.

By the time we arrived, as evening was approaching, I felt as sore as a rock must feel when the waterfall has pounded on it all day long.

As an American man of the 1990s writing about a Japanese woman of the 1930s, I needed to cross three cultural divides - man to woman, American to Japanese, and present to past.

The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.

We human beings have a remarkable way of growing accustomed to things.

I don't like things held up before me that I cannot have.

I worried she might spend an afternoon chatting with me about the sights and then wish me best of luck.