I'm not a writer because I want to make money. I'm a writer because I'm a very slow thinker, but I do care about thinking, and the only way I know how to think with any kind of finesse is by telling stories.

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?

...What is the use of beauty? i have lived my life surrounded by painters, and still I do not know the answer. But i suspect, some days, that beauty helps protect the spirit of mankind, swaddle it and succor it, so that we might survive. Beauty is no end in itself, but if it makes or lives less miserable so that we might be more kind-well, then, lets have beauty, painted on our porcelain, hanging on our walls, ringing through our stories.

There were more ways to live than the ones given by one's superiors

But she woke up just then, and in the moonlight covered herself with a blanket. She smiled at him drowsily and called him "Yero, my hero," and that melted his heart.

The world was floods above and fire below

I write because I admire the act of rationalization, of seeking clarity in one's understanding of the complexities of life, and I'm bad at it. I'm slow. Writing, which is an arduous and slow process, proceeds at the same rate as my sloth-like mind.