No one knows the author of memoir so well like himself.

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.

Here again, I saw life in all its noisy excitement passing me by.

She paints her face to hide her face. Her eyes are deep water. It is not for Geisha to want. It is not for geisha to feel. Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances, she sings. She entertains you, whatever you want. The rest is shadows, the rest is secret.

Can't you see? Every step I have taken, since I was that child on the bridge, has been to bring myself closer to you.

I tried to continue, but somehow my throat made up its mind to swallow – though I can’t think what I was swallowing, unless it was a little knot of emotion I pushed back down because there was no room in my face for any more.

After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.