And when I raised myself to look at the man who'd spoken, I had a feeling of leaving my misery behind me there on the stone wall.

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.

By the time we arrived, as evening was approaching, I felt as sore as a rock must feel when the waterfall has pounded on it all day long.

Perhaps it seems odd that a casual meeting on the street could have brought about such change. But sometimes life is like that isn't it

We human beings have a remarkable way of growing accustomed to things.

I fell into a sound sleep and dreamed that I was at a banquet back in Gion, talking with an elderly man who was explaining to me that his wife, whom he'd cared for deeply, wasn't really dead because the pleasure of their time together lived on inside him.

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