Memoirs give the knowledge about the author and his environment. They are different from biography. Memoirs do not get ahead, and the man who writes a biography looks at his future like at a very simple thing.

Autobiography, if there really is such a thing, is like asking a rabbit to tell us what he looks like hopping through the grasses of the field. How would he know? If we want to hear about the field on the other hand, no one is in a better circumstance to tell us-so long as we keep in mind that we are missing all those things the rabbit was in no position to observe.

I could no more have stopped myself from feeling that sadness than you could stop yourself from smelling an apple that has been cut open on the table before you.

Of course, a sign doesn't mean anything unless you know how to interpret it.

After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.

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

It was what we Japanese called the onion life, peeling away a layer at a time and crying all the while.