“The moon in all her immaculate purity hung in the sky, laughing at this world of dust. She congratulated me for my carefully considered maneuvers and invited me to share in her eternal solitude.”

“I reply with a letter as brief as his: 'My brother, after my first battle the only thing I now worship is the sun, a star that represents death's constancy. Beware of the moon, which reflects our world of beauty. It waxes and wanes, it is treacherous and ephemeral. We will all die some day . . . .”

“The winter light, tinted by the bright colors in the street, plays on the go-board. All these festivities cut me off from the rest of the world. My loneliness is like a bolt of crimson silk stowed in the bottom of a wooden chest.”

“The trees part before her slender form and close in again behind me. The roads weave a vast labyrinth, and I am lost.”

“I envied these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth.”

“The world in which we live is no more real than a moon beam reflected in water drawn from the palm of the hand...”

“I had lost some of my naivete and gained strength. These women with their pointless scheming could not contain me, and I watched the volatile world of the gynaeceum with a detached eye. The Forbidden City had buried my youth, and in the monastery, I had died and come back to life. Friends, enemies and mistresses had all disappeared. I was a ghost from a lost world, still going from one season to the next and still living for one man alone.”