لا شيء أجمل من الوجه البارد لإمرأة شابة نائمة. أليس هو التعزية الكبرى التي يمكن أن يهبها العالم؟ حتى المرأة الأكثر جمالاً لا تقدر على إخفاء عمرها عندم… - Yasunari Kawabata

The single flower contains more brightness than a hundred flowers. The great sixteenth-century master of the tea ceremony and flower arranging, Rikyu, taught that it was wrong to use fully opened flowers. Even in the tea ceremony today the general practice is to have in the alcove of the tea room but a single flower, and that a flower in bud. In winter a special flower of winter, let us say a camellia, bearing some such name as White Jewel or Wabisuke, which might be translated literally as "Helpmate in Solitude", is chosen, a camellia remarkable among camellias for its whiteness and the smallness of its blossoms; and but a single bud is set out in the alcove. White is the cleanest of colors, it contains in itself all the other colors. And there must always be dew on the bud. The bud is moistened with a few drops of water.

… el tiempo se divide en muchas corrientes. Como en un río, hay una corriente central rápida en algunos sectores y lenta, hasta inmóvil, en otros. El tiempo cósmico es igual para todos, pero el tiempo humano difiere con cada persona. El tiempo corre de la misma manera para todos los seres humanos; pero todo ser humano flota de distinta manera en el tiempo (…) Las corrientes del tiempo nunca son iguales para dos personas, ni siquiera cuando son amantes...

The labor into which a heart has poured its whole love — where will it have its say, to excite and inspire, and when?