Now, even more than the evening before, he could think of no one with whom to compare her. She had become absolute, beyond comparison. She had become decision and fate.

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People have separated from each other with walls of concrete that blocked the roads to connection and love. and Nature has been defeated in the name of development.

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The woman was silent, her eyes on the floor. Shimamura had come to a point where he knew he was only parading his masculine shamelessness, and yet it seemed likely enough that the woman was familiar with the failing and need not be shocked by it. He looked at her. Perhaps it was the rich lashes of the downcast eyes that made her face seem warm and sensuous. She shook her head very slightly, and again a faint blush spread over her face.

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Cosmic time is the same for everyone, but human time differs with each person. Time flows in the same way for all human beings; every human being flows through time in a different way.

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Lunatics have no age. If we were crazy, you and I, we might be a great deal younger.

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Does pain go away and leave no trace, then?’ ‘You sometimes even feel sentimental for it.

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The road was frozen. The village lay quiet under the cold sky. Komako hitched up the skirt of her kimono and tucked it into her obi. The moon shone like a blade frozen in blue ice.

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I wonder what the retirement age is in the novel business. The day you die.

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Because you cannot see him, God is everywhere.

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The labor into which a heart has poured its whole love--where will it have its say, to excite and inspire, and when?

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