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

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

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

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.

Memoirs give the knowledge about the author and his environment. They are different from biography. Memoirs do not get ahead, and the man who writes a biography looks at his future like at a very simple thing.

My tears simply broke through the fragile wallthat had held them, and with a terrible feeling of shame, I laid my head upon the table and let them drain out of me.

I worried she might spend an afternoon chatting with me about the sights and then wish me best of luck.