Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.

I stumbled out into the courtyard to try to flee my misery, but of course we can never flee the misery that is within us.

Geisha is always called beautiful even if she is not.

The prettiest of them all is a girl who is pretty on the inside.

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

At the temple there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it.

Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable?