Nothing Is As Bleak As The Future,

A Mind Troubled By Doubt Cannot Focus On The Course Of Victory.

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.

I Was Thanking Him For...well, For Something I'm Not Sure I Can Explain Even Now. For Showing Me That Something Besides Cruelty Could Be Found In The World, I Suppose.

The Prettiest Of Them All Is A Girl Who Is Pretty On The Inside.

What An Unbearable Sorrow It Would Be, To Realized I'd Never Really Tasted To Things I'd Eaten, Or Seen The Places I'd Been. What Life Would I Have? I Would Be Like The Dancer Who Had Practiced Since Childhood For A Performance She Would Never Give.