Couldn’t the wrong sort of living turn anyone mean? I remembered very well that one day back in Yoroido, a boy pushed me into a thorn bush near the pond. By the time I clawed...

A memoir provides a record not so much of the memoirist as of the memoirist’s world.

I’m not sure this will make sense to you, but I felt as though I’d turned around to look in a different direction, so that I no longer faced backward toward the past, but forward...

Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing...

I will think of you every time I need to be reminded that there is beauty and goodness in the world.

When I said these words, all the heat in my body seemed to rise to my face. I felt I might float up into the air, just like a piece of ash from a fire.