Four Seasons in Japan

Oh, to be a cat,’ he says. ‘They dream, but they don’t let their dreams consume them. That’s the thing about humans – we feel like we have to make our dreams real. And that’s what causes us such joy and discontent.

But when you meet someone who cares deeply about something the same way as you do, I don’t know, there’s something attractive about that. Don’t you think? Particularly when it happens to be the same passion you yourself have.

It’s not about getting to the end – about completion. That’s what I needed to learn. It’s about the journey, the process itself. The cycle of work and art is like the seasons, flowing from one into another, round and round, over and over.

What do you do after you’ve achieved your biggest dream? What do you do next?

Without losing to the rain,’ Ayako quoted the Miyazawa Kenji poem. ‘Without losing to the wind.

But the important thing is that you turn up, you get out your pen, and you draw one small thing, one line at a time. That’s how you achieve something big. Not in one giant leap, but in ten thousand tiny steps.

the Atomic Bomb Dome was reinforced with iron girders and left standing as a reminder of the atrocities that humans can commit towards one another, when they put their minds to it. The modern city of Hiroshima arose from the ashes of the old, a vibrant and youthful place, but the ghostly shell of the Atomic Bomb Dome was still there, standing silently, lest anyone should forget what had happened.

It seemed sad to have such beautiful blossoms only for a fleeting moment, and then have them taken away instantly.

She watched the raindrops falling down the windowpane, and thought of how she’d snuck a sentence from War and Peace into her translation of Sound of Water – ‘Drops dripped.’ She’d taken it from the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation she’d been reading over the summer.

I remember looking out into that dark night sky, and I remember feeling something I hadn’t in a long time – I want to live. Having found myself that close to death, I suddenly knew that I wasn’t ready to die. I experienced awe and wonder at this world we live in. How incredible existence is. The probability of our being here, of having survived as a species on this tiny speck of a planet. I was gripped with a desire to keep going – to experience more of this thing we call existence. It dawned on me how precious life is.

You don’t have to, though,’ his friend said, with a tilt of his head. ‘You can do whatever you like, man. It’s your life. Don’t live it for other people.