"At the temple there is a poem called "Loss"carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it."
"Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one."
"We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course."
"And when I raised myself to look at the man who’d spoken, I had a feeling of leaving my misery behind me there on the stone wall."
"The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains."
"Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one."