Certain experiences you never forget, no matter how old you become.

There's no backward and no forward, no day other than this. You fill your cart as you go, and that's that.

Beyond the terrace, a light breeze stirred the reeds at the edge of the pond. Looking out at this intimate vista, one could see the reeds and a stone lantern and the brightest of the evening's stars floating on the gloaming mirror of the pond. Then the breeze came again to crack the water's surface, and the picture was flooded.

Along the wide curving moat surrounding the palace, rows of cherry trees announced the end of their seasonal beauty. Some of the trees were weeping: blossoms in white and palest pink, ponderous with decreptitude, eddying on the brown water, stirred by the paddling of ducks.

Men had suddenly become a scarce commodity, if not quite as sought after as rice.

A girl never can predict who might wander into her boudoir during a bubble bath.

It is one thing to recognise certain potentially useful affinities, and another to act on them.