It was what we Japanese called the onion life, peeling away a layer at a time and crying all the while.

Never give up; for even rivers someday wash dams away.

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.

By the time we arrived, as evening was approaching, I felt as sore as a rock must feel when the waterfall has pounded on it all day long.

I worried she might spend an afternoon chatting with me about the sights and then wish me best of luck.

After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.

I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.

We don't become geisha because we want our lives to be happy; we become geisha because we have no choice.

At that moment, beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy.

A tree may look as beautiful as ever; but when you notice the insects infesting it, and the tips of the branches that are brown from disease, even the trunk seems to lose some of its magnificence.

If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was.

You can’t have it both ways. Either I’m Irish and can talk, or I’m a man and I can’t.

Better to say nothing at all, rather than something you'll regret.

I am wired like a CEO and care a great deal about the bottom line, but I care about my customers even more than that. That's always been my competitive advantage.

For work, I have to be living in cities, I really cherish the time when I get to be out in the countryside.

We're so determined to help those we love that we lose all perspective

Marriage, at first, may seem like it will last forever. But surprisingly, a lot of the times, it shatters easily. Like porcelain.

An hour is not merely an hour, it is a vase full of scents and sounds and projects and climates.

Actually, it's great to play with someone who tries to come up with interesting drum beats because it pushes the music in different directions.

Then he almost but didn't say the two sentence he'd been meaning to say for years: part of me is made of glass, and also, I love you

One of the best moments Ive ever had in New Orleans is seeing Bourbon Street filled on a weekend night not long ago. Just watching the city breathe again.