Some people have difficulty telling the difference between something great and something they've simply heard of.

Nothing is as bleak as the future, except the past.

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.

Never give up; for even rivers someday wash dams away.

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.

Seeing him again after so long awakened something inside me. I was surprised to find myself feeling sad rather than joyful, as I would have imagined.

Sometimes," he sighed, "I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see.