. . .my dreams are the single unpredictable factor in my zoned days and nights. Nobody allots them, or censors them. Dreams are all I have ever truly owned.

Wars are never cured, they just go into remission for a few years.

If I want to act relaxed, it's going to take all my cunning, skill, and concentration.

Often I think boys don’t become men. Boys just get papier-mâchéd inside a man’s mask. Sometimes you can tell the boy is still in there.

For white men, to live is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more. Their appetites are astonishing! They own wardrobes, slaves, carriages, houses, warehouses, and ships. They own ports, cities, plantations, valleys, mountains, chains of islands. They own this world, its jungles, its skies, and its seas. Yet they complain that Dejima is a prison. They complain they are not free.

The rain's innumerable hooves spatter on the streets and roofs.

Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints.