“For a long time I had not approached the forbidden fruit called happiness, but it was now tempting me with a melancholy persistence. I felt as though Sonoko were an abyss above which I stood poised.”

“Not since the serpentapproached Eve in the Garden had a woman been so tempted by forbidden fruit.”

“I was a happy melancholy, though — a contradiction in terms, to be sure, but every human understands this paradox, because they have all felt it.”

“There is simply something wrong with my conscience. I do try to wrestle with the devil as I ought, but, like Eve, even when tempted by the Forbidden Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, I succumb. Good as they are, how could my parents have bred a daughter like me?”

“I was most happy when pen and paper were taken from me and I was forbidden from doing anything. I had no anxiety about doing nothing by my own fault, my conscience was clear, and I was happy. This was when I was in prison.”

“I could call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play.”