The omelette tasted like flannel.

In retrospect, each of the steps toward this abyss seemed irrevocable, and yet they had all been so small!

But now the shots began—not many, but one shot is a fusillade if there have been no shots before.

Credit . . . is the only enduring testimonial to man's confidence in man.

Who does it hurt? That's who the story is about.

Now that I'm a free agent I mean to make my own choices, and explain them to nobody if that's what pleases me.

[H]er spare strange beauty was not that of a woman, nor even of a statue, but that of the Platonic absolute of which all beauty is but a shadow in a cave, cast by the Fire beyond fire.

Three ways to Change: First is behaving Positively, Second is behaving Positively, and the Third is stop being Negative.

You think of outside your room, of the streets of the town, the lonely little squares over by the station, of those winter Saturdays all alike.

Integrating the beauty of seasonal change into the residence was a concept that remains true even today even in the more cramped, inner city machiya.

If you are worrying about reputation, you are taking time away from doing the things that really matter.

It's them that takes advantage that gets advantage i' this world.

I decided in my life that I would do nothing that did not reflect positively on my father's life.

Don't be creative when you should be mechanical, and don't be mechanical when you should be creative.

Everyone who enjoys supposes that the tree was concerned with the fruit, but it was really concerned with the seed. -In this lies the difference between all those who create and those who enjoy.

Studios might support people trying to do something a little bit different and they'd be more open to the fact that there's more than one path to the waterfall.

Come my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession.