I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon.

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.

If you have to love, then love greatly.

Misbehavior and punishment are not opposites that cancel each other - on the contrary they breed and reinforce each other.

The arc of your swing doesn't have a thing to do with the size of your heart.

I don't hesitate to say if every family in the world practiced [family home evening], you'd see a very great difference in the solidarity of the families of the world.

There were the fairy tales my father told to me at bedtime. All the standards. I thought my father invented wolves.

To remember my values, I need to lose certain tastes and find other handles for the memories that they once helped me carry.

When a person finds themselves predisposed to complaining about how little they are regarded by others, let them reflect how little they have contributed to the happiness of others.

We don't have politicians with dignity and morals. We never have, not since [Nelson] Mandela and [Mahatma ] Gandhi. It's really rare.

I just look like a transvestite when I try to dress up. There's no place to hide my balls.

There is a phenomenal amount of pressure on women in this industry: they are considered vintage by the time they hit their mid-30s.