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.

If you keep your destiny in mind, every moment in life becomes an opportunity for moving closer to it.

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

Geisha because when I was living in Japan, I met a fellow whose mother was a geisha, and I thought that was kind of fascinating and ended up reading about the subject just about the same time I was getting interested in writing fiction.

We all know that a winter scene, though it may be covered over one day, with even the trees dressed in shawls of snow, will be unrecognizable the following spring. Yet I never imagined such a thing could occur within our very selves.

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

Flowers that grow where old ones have withered serve to remind us that death will one day come to us all.