Does pain go away and leave no trace, then?’ ‘You sometimes even feel sentimental for it.

I wonder what the retirement age is in the novel business. The day you die.

It's remarkable how we go on year after year, doing the same old things. We get tired and bored, and ask when they'll come for us

The woman was silent, her eyes on the floor. Shimamura had come to a point where he knew he was only parading his masculine shamelessness, and yet it seemed likely enough that the woman was familiar with the failing and need not be shocked by it. He looked at her. Perhaps it was the rich lashes of the downcast eyes that made her face seem warm and sensuous. She shook her head very slightly, and again a faint blush spread over her face.

Along the coast the sea roars, and inland the mountains roar – the roaring at the center, like a distant clap of thunder.

But, drawn to her at that moment, he felt a quiet like the voice of the rain flow over him. He knew well enough that for her it was in fact no waste of effort, but somehow the final determination that it was had the effect of distilling and purifying the woman's existence.

The winter moon becomes a companion, the heart of the priest, sunk in meditation upon religion and philosophy, there in the mountain hall, is engaged in a delicate interplay and exchange with the moon; and it is this of which the poet sings.