it is wrong to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences... but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life a dimension of beauty.

...people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste. Can you tell me what kind of day can follow a beginning of such violence? What happens to people whose alarm clock daily gives them a small electric shock? Each day they become more used to violence and less used to pleasure.

But man, because he has only one life to live, cannot conduct experiments to test whether to follow his passion (compassion) or not.

Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful.

Being in a foreign country means walking a tightrope high above the ground without the net afforded a person by the country where he has his family, colleagues, and friends, and where he can easily say what he has to say in a language he has known from childhood.

How goodness heightens beauty!

No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.