I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school, and afterward went to work in Tokyo, where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha. He and I never discussed his parentage, which was an open secret, but it fascinated me.

of course the pace of change never slows, even when we've convinced ourselves it will.

We can never flee the misery that is within us.

We none of us find as much kindness in this world as we should.

A memoir provides a record not so much of the memoirist as of the memoirist's world.

Nothing in life is ever as simple as we imagine.

I will think of you every time I need to be reminded that there is beauty and goodness in the world.