All at once I felt so vain, like a girl posturing for the crowds as she walks along, only to discover the street is empty.

Anyone can have a good day. The question is what do you do on a bad day. That's when you're being tested. In a very tangible sense, a bad day shows your innermost essence more than a good day.

I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon.

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

Those of us with water in our personalities don't pick where we'll flow to. All we can do is flow where the landscape of our lives carries us

At the temple there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it.

An en is a karmic bond lasting a lifetime. Nowadays many people seem to believe their lives are entirely a matter of choice; but in my day we viewed ourselves as pieces of clay that forever show the fingerprints of everyone who has touched them.