The swan who goes on living in its parents' tree will die; this is why those who are beautiful and talented bear the burden of finding their own way in the world.

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.

A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it.

Jesus Christ is the Son of Man.

May the Heavens be open to your prayers.

If your plan is not working, pivot. If it is working, do more of it!

He longed for a world where safe places for the weak and vulnerable were common, but that was not this world. Not right now.

The only difference between dreams and achievements is hard work.

Why do we pursue information that we know will never leave our heads?

Be patient with the negative people of the world. Take a moment to think how they are helping you clarify your own thinking and firming your own resolve. Then, headslap them out of your way.

Underneath it all, you longed to be annihilated by love.

Whether Canada ends up as o­ne national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion...