Yet somehow the thing that startled me most, after a week or two had passed, was that I had in fact survived.

The corridor couldn't have smelled more strongly of fish guts if we had actually been inside a fish.

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.

I never seek to defeat the man I am fighting, " he explained. "I seek to defeat his confidence. A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. Two men are equals - true equals - only when they both have equal confidence.

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.

Watch for the thing that will show itself to you. Because that thing, when you find it, will be your future.

When we fight upstream against a rocky undercurrent, every foothold takes on a kind of urgency.