“Sometimes you can’t let go of the past without facing it again.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“Beauty exists where you least expect to find it.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“It is not an act of bravery to try to save your own village. It is an instinct to protect what you possess. Bravery is when you step in to help when you have nothing to lose.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“When you're young, you can excuse many things, hoping they will strengthen with time.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“It takes greater courage to live.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“Matsu gathered up what little was left of the food and wrapped it back up in the furoshiki. 'I followed you and the others down to the beach yesterday morning. I wondered if you might try to find your way to peace as she did.'
'I couldn't,' I began to cry, turning away in shame. Then Matsu leaned over close to my ear. He smelled of sweat and the earth as he whispered, 'It takes greater courage to live.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“The garden is a world filled with secrets. Slowly, I see more each day. The black pines twist and turn to form graceful shapes, while the moss is a carpet of green that invites you to sit by the pond. Even the stone lanterns, which dimly light the way at night, allow you to see only so much.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“...I learned that beauty exists where you least expect to find it.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“The things you remember about a person when they're gone are funny. No two people will feel the same way, though usually it has to do with scent, or expression, the sound of a voice, an unusual gesture. For me, I can still see the colors of Keiko; the black of her hair against creamy pale skin, her dark blue kimono with white circles, the deep orange persimmons falling from the brown basket she carried. The ache in my heart grows larger every time I think of these colors, and how as each day passes they continue to fade from my eyes.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“Sometimes the house is so quiet I feel like the only noise that fills my mind is what I've created myself. Remembered conversations come back to me as if my friends and family were right here in the room.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“When the water boiled, Michiko poured it into the pot of green leaves and we both waited in the thick silence. I felt strangely calmed by this simple ritual I had seen my mother do many hundred times before. It was all that seemed to make sense in this place and I held on to it as if I were drowning.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“Sometimes I felt like I would go insane not having the answers to such simple questions. Of course, it was always hardest during the night, then the darkness stole away any signs of hope.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“Sometimes I felt like I would go insane not having the answers to such simple questions. Of course, it was always hardest during the night, when the darkness stole away any signs of hope.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“Every so often I was overwhelmed by a phantom pain that cut through me like a knife. I was certain that if I looked down I would find blood all over, like the knife I once held in my hands, but it was all in my mind.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“Please, Matsu-san,' I told him, not long after the house was completed. 'I don't wish to have any flowers.'
"Never once did he question me. I needed my life to be simple without any beauty to remind me of all I had lost. And though I had not told him that, Matsu must have seen it in my eyes. 'Don't worry, Sachi,' he said, 'there will be no flowers.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“I wanted to say something back to him, and I knew deep down that he was right, though I didn't have the words yet. Until that disease chose me, I had lived a charmed life of grace and ease, while Matsu had always to work hard for what he desired. He has always known where beauty comes from. Later on, when the disease spread over the left side of my face, I tried to accept the burden placed on me, to tell myself that real beauty comes from deep within. But I'm afraid sometimes I reverted back to my spoiled ways. But, Stephen-san, can you imagine what it was like to watch your own face slowly transformed into a monster? Have you ever awakened in the morning from a series of nightmares, fearing what you might have turned into during the night? I will not lie to you and tell you that it was easy. There were times when I thought I could actually feel my skin shrinking, pulling against my bones and muscles, slowly suffocating me. Matsu comforted me as much as he could by having me work on the house, or in the garden, but no matter how much pleasure I found in them, they were still cold and inanimate. I longed for my past life. Matsu always knew that the peace of mine I needed could only be found within myself.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“It was like a bad dream with only one saving grace: my family thought I was dead. I suddenly felt lighter, relieved of the burden that had been placed on me as a living person. Yet, there was still someone who knew I existed, which made me feel like a real person again, not a ghost roaming the earth.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“...we can't hide from it, we are all touched by the madness of it.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
Gail Tsukiyama
Born place: San Francisco, The United States
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“Rioting over food: how could this be? Here was all this grain, food enough to feed half the world, sitting in piles at the train station, going to waste. Something was out of balance.”
― Timothy Egan, quote from The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
“...evident in every small act of kindness. It was love as a verb, as Rachel used to say. Love that made me more patient, more loyal, and stronger. Love that made me feel more complete than I had ever felt in my glamorous, Jimmy Choo-filled past.”
― Emily Giffin, quote from Something Blue
“The free spirit again draws near to life - slowly, to be sure, almost reluctantly, almost mistrustfully. It again grows warmer about him, yellower as it were; feeling and feeling for others acquire depth, warm breezes of all kind blow across him. It seems to him as if his eyes are only now open to what is close at hand. he is astonished and sits silent: where had he been? These close and closest things: how changed they seem! what bloom and magic they have acquired!
He looks back gratefully - grateful to his wandering, to his hardness and self-alienation, to his viewing of far distances and bird-like flights in cold heights. What a good thing he had not always stayed "at home," stayed "under his own roof" like a delicate apathetic loafer! He had been -beside himself-: no doubt about that.
Only now does he see himself - and what surprises he experiences as he does so! What unprecedented shudders! What happiness even in the weariness, the old sickness, the relapses of the convalescent! How he loves to sit sadly still, to spin out patience, to lie in the sun! Who understands as he does the joy that comes in winter, the spots of sunlight on the wall!
They are the most grateful animals in the world, also the most modest, these convalescents and lizards again half-turned towards life: - there are some among them who allow no day to pass without hanging a little song of praise on the hem of its departing robe. And to speak seriously: to become sick in the manner of these free spirits, to remain sick for a long time and then, slowly, slowly, to become healthy, by which I mean "healthier," is a fundamental cure for all pessimism.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Human, All Too Human
“It wasn’t necessary to tell you,” Abbot responded in a clipped voice.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, quote from Stone Cold Touch
“Le resulta agotador estar en compañía de personas para las que una sonrisa espontánia es señal de infantil debilidad.”
― Stef Penney, quote from The Tenderness of Wolves
Invasion of the Over...
Tunneling to the Cen...
Refuge
These Strange Ashes
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