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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The sound of the freezing of snow over the land seemed to roar deep into the earth. There was no moon. The stars, almost too many of them to be true, came forward so brightly that it was as if they were falling with the swiftness of the void. As the stars came nearer, the sky retreated deeper and deeper into the night color. The layers of the Border Range, indistinguishable one from another, cast their heaviness at the skirt of the starry sky in a blackness grave and somber enough to communicate their mass. The whole of the night scene came together in a clear, tranquil harmony.

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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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From the way of Go the beauty of Japan and the Orient had fled. Everything had become science and regulation.

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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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Because you cannot see him, God is everywhere.

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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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Our language is primarily for expressing human goodness and beauty.

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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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Put your soul in the palm of my hand for me to look at, like a crystal jewel. I'll sketch it in words.

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