“Three things refuse to obey my will: the waters of the Kamo River, the fall of the backgammon dice, and the monks of the Enryakuji Temple.”

“By the River Piedra I sat down and wept. There is a legend that everything that falls into the waters of this river -- leaves, insects, the feathers of birds -- is transformed into the rocks that make the riverbed. If only I could tear out my heart and hurl it into the current, then my pain and longing would be over, and I could finally forget.”

“Water never stops moving. Rain falls, and runs down a mountain into a river. The river finds its way to the ocean. It evaporates, like a soul, into the clouds. And then, like everything else, it starts all over again.”

“I murmur: "It's a seat," a little like an exorcism. But the word stays on my lips: it refuses to go and put itself on the thing. It stays what it is, with its red plush, thousands of little red paws in the air, all still, little dead paws. This enormous belly turned upward, bleeding, inflated—bloated with all its dead paws, this belly floating in this car, in this grey sky, is not a seat. It could just as well be a dead donkey tossed about in the water, floating with the current, belly in the air in a great grey river, a river of floods; and I could be sitting on the donkey's belly, my feet dangling in the clear water.”

“Falling seemed to take forever as the water slowly rose to meet me. The dome of city hall continued to gleam in the distance, with its golden reflection extending to the river water. Strange that I hadn't seen that before.”

“Whatever police the world may prescribe to rule the soul, I refuse to obey them.”