Our language is primarily for expressing human goodness and beauty.

Put your soul in the palm of my hand for me to look at, like a crystal jewel. I'll sketch it in words.

They were words that came out of nothing, but they seemed to him somehow significant. He muttered them over again.

The road was frozen. The village lay quiet under the cold sky. Komako hitched up the skirt of her kimono and tucked it into her obi. The moon shone like a blade frozen in blue ice.

Now, even more than the evening before, he could think of no one with whom to compare her. She had become absolute, beyond comparison. She had become decision and fate.

I suppose even a woman's hatred is a kind of love.

A secret, if it's kept, can be sweet and comforting, but once it leaks out it can turn on you with a vengeance.