Think not that I have come in quest of common flowers; but rather to bemoan the loss of one whose scent has vanished from the air. - Arthur Waley

Anything whatsoever may become the subject of a novel, provided only that it happens in this mundane life and not in some fairyland beyond our human ken.

Tripitaka stepped lightly ashore. He had discarded his earthly body; he was cleansed from the corruption of the senses, from the fleshly inheritance of those bygone years. His was now the transcendent wisdom that leads to the Further Shore, the mastery that knows no bounds.

Nothing in the world is difficult,' said the Patriarch, 'it is only our own thoughts that make things seem so.