No matter what the situation may be, I still take pleasure in witnessing the joy of others.

Where are you now?’ Where was I now? Gripping the receiver, I raised my hand and turned to see what lay beyond the telephone booth. Where was I now? I had no idea. No idea at all. Where was this place? All that flashed into my eyes were the countless shapes of people walking by to nowhere. Again and again, I called out for Midori from the dead center of this place that was no place.

I get irritated, I get upset. Especially when I'm in a hurry. But I see it all as part of our training. To get irritated is to lose our way in life.

What we call the present is given shape by an accumulation of the past.

I was thirty-seven then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense cloud cover on approach to the Hamburg airport.

What was lost was lost. There was no retrieving it, however you schemed, no returning to how things were, no going back.

Ever since that happened to me, I haven't been able to give myself to anyone in this world.