I Don't Think It's Any Fun, Even

I Was Very Young When I Prepared Those Prints. I Suspect The Reason I Couldn't Celebrate The Floating World Was That I Couldn't Bring Myself To Believe In Its Worth. Young Men Are Often Guilt-ridden About Pleasure, And I Suppose I Was No Different. I Suppose I Thought That To Pass Away One's Time In Such Places, To Spend One's Skills Celebrating Things So Intangible And Transient, I Suppose I Thought It All Rather Wasteful, All Rather Decadent. It's Hard To Appreciate The Beauty Of A World When One Doubts Its Very Validity

Perhaps One Day, All These Conflicts Will End, And It Won't Be Because Of Great Statesmen Or Churches Or Organisations Like This One. It'll Be Because People Have Changed. They'll Be Like You, Puffin. More A Mixture. So Why Not Become A Mongrel? It's Healthy.

There Comes A Point When You Can More Or Less Count The Number Of Books You're Going To Write Before You Die.

We All Live Inside Bodies That Will Deteriorate. But When You Look At Human Beings, They're Capable Of Very Decent Things: Love, Loyalty. When Time Is Running Out, They Don't Care About Possessions Or Status. They Want To Put Things Right If They've Done Wrong.

There Was Another Life That I Might Have Had, But I Am Having This One.