“At night the bottom of the valley looks like water, and the lamps in the little town lying along it like quivering reflections of the stars.”

“When the Golden Temple reflected the evening sun or shone in the moon, it was the light of the water (in the pond before it) that made the entire structure look as if it were mysteriously floating along and flapping its wings. The strong bonds of the temple's form were loosened by the reflection of the quivering water, and at such moments the Golden Temple seemed to be constructed of materials like wind and water and flame that are commonly in motion.”

“There was no moon but the night sky was a riot of crisp and glittering autumn stars. There were streetlights too and lights on buildings and on bridges which looked like earthbound stars and they glimmered repeated as they were reflected with the city in the night water of the Thames. It’s fairyland thought Richard.”

“Being a teacher at a restaurant in the town where you lived was a little like being a TV star...”

“Chikako could see Nobue's flowers reflected in Kaori's eyes. They looked like stars. Like love itself.”

“...the night is suddenly vaster, colder, clearer.All the stars zing; the mountains glitter; towns and villages gather like bright mould in the valley-seams and along the coasts.Every movement in byre and bunny-hole, of leaf against leaf, of germ in soil and stream, turns and gleams and laminates every other, the whole world monstrously fancy, laced tight together, yet slopping over and unraveling in every direction, a grand brilliant wastage of the living an the dying.”