I Stumbled Out Into The Courtyard To

When A Man Takes A Mistress, He Doesn't Turn Around And Divorce His Wife.

All At Once I Felt So Vain, Like A Girl Posturing For The Crowds As She Walks Along, Only To Discover The Street Is Empty.

As An American Man Of The 1990s Writing About A Japanese Woman Of The 1930s, I Needed To Cross Three Cultural Divides - Man To Woman, American To Japanese, And Present To Past.

We Human Beings Have A Remarkable Way Of Growing Accustomed To Things.

From This Experience, I Understood The Danger Of Focusing Only On What Isn't There. What If I Came To The End Of My Life And Realized That I'd Spent Every Day Watching For A Man Who Would Never Come To Me? What An Unbearable Sorrow It Would Be, To Realize I'd Never Really Tasted The Things I'd Eaten, Or Seen The Places I'd Been, Because I'd Thought Of Nothing But The Chairman Even While My Life Was Drifting Away From Me. And Yet If I Drew My Thoughts Back From Him, What Life Would I Have? I Would Be Like A Dancer Who Had Practiced Since Childhood For A Performance She Would Never Give.