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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It's remarkable how we go on year after year, doing the same old things. We get tired and bored, and ask when they'll come for us

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And I can't complain. After all, only women are able really to love.

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I suppose even a woman's hatred is a kind of love.

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

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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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In the depths of the mirror the evening landscape moved by, the mirror and the reflected figures like motion pictures superimposed one on the other. The figures and the background were unrelated, and yet the figures, transparent and intangible, and the background, dim in the gathering darkness, melted into a sort of symbolic world not of this world. Particularly when a light out in the mountains shone in the center of the girl's face, Shimamura felt his chest rise at the inexpressible beauty of it.

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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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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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