What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realized I'd never really tasted to things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd been. What life would I have? I would be like the dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give.

It's less a matter of looking the other way than of closing our eyes to what we can't stop from happening.

I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.

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

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

Couldn't the wrong sort of living turn anyone mean? I remembered very well that one day back in Yoroido, a boy pushed me into a thorn bush near the pond. By the time I clawed my way out I was mad enough to bite through wood. If a few minutes of suffering could make me so angry, what would years of it do? Even stone can be worn down with enough rain.

How many times already had I encountered the painful lesson that although we may wish for the barb to be pulled from our flesh, it leaves a welt that doesn't heal?