I began to feel that all the people I'd ever known who had died or left me had not in fact gone away, but continued to live on inside me just as this man's wife lived on inside him.

Water is powerful. It can wash away earth, put out fire, and even destroy iron.

A tree may look as beautiful as ever; but when you notice the insects infesting it, and the tips of the branches that are brown from disease, even the trunk seems to lose some of its magnificence.

Nothing in life is ever as simple as we imagine.

I fell into a sound sleep and dreamed that I was at a banquet back in Gion, talking with an elderly man who was explaining to me that his wife, whom he'd cared for deeply, wasn't really dead because the pleasure of their time together lived on inside him.

When a man takes a mistress, he doesn't turn around and divorce his wife.

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