“He’d never seen a rain quite like this so gentle that it seemed barely to fall yet slowly laid its shine on the bay leaves and hydrangea flowers…”

“It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, but it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: music, laughter, the physics of falling leaves, automobiles, holding hands, the scent of rain, the concept of subway trains... if only one could leave this life slowly!”

“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"..."It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...”

“I saw power, yet meekness, forcefulness, yet gentleness, discipline, yet compassion. I had never seen eyes like His.”

“Silently a flower blooms,In silence if falls away;Yet here now, at this moment, at this place,The world of the flower, the whold of the world is blooming.This is the talk of the flowr, the truth of the blosson:The glory of eternal life is fully shining here.”

“Most of us have the good or bad fortune of seeing our lives fall apart so slowly we barely notice.”