Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.

The older we get the more we seem to think that everything was better in the past.

And isn't it better really to leave things only hinted at?

The ancients waited for cherry blossoms, grieved when they were gone, and lamented their passing in countless poems. How very ordinary the poems had seemed to Sachiko when she read them as a girl, but now she knew, as well as one could know, that grieving over fallen cherry blossoms was more than a fad or convention.

For a woman who lived in the dark it was enough if she had a faint, white face -a full body was unnecessary.

There are those who say that when civilization progresses a bit further transportation facilities will move into the skies and under the ground, and that our streets will again be quiet, but I know perfectly well that when that day comes some new device for torturing the old will be invented.

Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.