“The pale whiteness of her upturned face as she choked on the smoke; the tangled length of her hair as she tried to shake the flames from it; the beauty of her cherry-blossom robe as it burst into f...”

“Chained inside the carriage is a sinful woman. When we set the carriage afire, her flesh will be roasted, her bones will be charred: she will die an agonizing death. Never again will you have such ...”

“Still more horrible was the color of the flames that licked the latticed cabin vents before shooting skyward, as though - might I say? - the sun itself had crashed to earth, spewing its heavenly fi...”

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves”

“Love, like fire, goes out without fuel.”

“She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.”

“The entire area - some 300 square kilometers - is sacred. There are shrines and temples dotted about the slopes, but they merely confirm the sanctity of the land. It is not in the shrines and templ...”

“Above a certain size and level of prosperity, regional cities in Japan look alike. To discover what makes each one different, one has to sample the food and the sake, and stay long enough to see th...”

“Confounding though it seems, to acknowledge our dilemma, that we are no different from any animal coexisting on this planet, ironic really when through the ages, we have struggled with such pretens...”

“ To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman. No matter how amorous or passionate you may be, as long as you are straightforward and refrai...”

“The bond between husband and wife is a strong one. Suppose the man had hunted her out and brought her back. The memory of her acts would still be there, and inevitably, sooner or later, it would be...”

“No, I don't want your money. The world moves less by money than by what you owe people and what they owe you. I don't like to owe anybody anything, so I keep to myself as much on the lending side a...”