I didn't say to act dead. I said act helpless.

But what I could see out of the corner of my eye made me think of two lovely bundles of silk floating along a stream. In a moment they were hovering on the walkway in front of me, where they sank down and smoothed their kimono across their knees.

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

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.

I was thanking him for...well, for something I'm not sure I can explain even now. For showing me that something besides cruelty could be found in the world, I suppose.

Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one.

A geisha has studied a man's moods and his seasons. She fusses and he blooms.