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

“After looking at myself in the mirror, I looked at Satsuko. I could not believe that we were creatures of the same species. The uglier the face in the mirror, the more extraordinarily beautiful Satsuko seemed. If that ugly face were only uglier, I thought regretfully, Satsuko would look even more beautiful.”

“I wouldn’t mind being injured if that would bring Satsuko pleasure, and a mortal injury would be all the better. Yet to think of being trampled to death, not by her but by her dog…”

“Whenever I see the alcove of a tastefully built Japanese room, I marvel at our comprehension of the secrets of shadows, our sensitive use of shadow and light. For the beauty of the alcove is not the work of some clever device. An empty space is marked off with plain wood and plain walls, so that the light drawn into its forms dim shadows within emptiness. There is nothing more. And yet, when we gaze into the darkness that gathers behind the crossbeam, around the flower vase, beneath the shelves, though we know perfectly well it is mere shadow, we are overcome with the feeling that in this small corner of the atmosphere there reigns complete and utter silence; that here in the darkness immutable tranquility holds sway.”

“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.”

“Perhaps I am already tired of life—I feel as if it makes no difference when I die. The other day at the Toranomon Hospital when they told me it might be cancer, my wife and Miss Sasaki seemed to turn pale, but I was quite calm. It was surprising that I could be calm even at such a moment. I almost felt relieved, to think that my long, long life was finally coming to an end.”

“When I was at the University I knew a law student named Yamada Uruu. Later he worked for the Osaka Municipal Office; he’s been dead for years. This man’s father was an old-time lawyer, or “advocate,” who in early Meiji defended the notorious murderess Takahashi Oden. It seems he often talked to his son about Oden’s beauty. Apparently he would corner him and go on and on about her, as if deeply moved. “You might call her alluring, or bewitching,” he would say. “I’ve never known such a fascinating woman, she’s a real vampire. When I saw her I thought I wouldn’t mind dying at the hands of a woman like that!”Since I have no particular reason to keep on living, sometimes I think I would be happier if a woman like Oden turned up to kill me. Rather than endure the pain of these half-dead arms and legs of mine, maybe I could get it over and at the same time see how it feels to be brutally murdered.”