Quotes from Gail Tsukiyama

Do you think a champion is made out of thin air? It's through the hardships you endure that you'll gain real strength.

To have strength without knowing how to use it means nothing.

To read and write will help you understand life. . .to sew and mend will help you survive it.

I also find doing the mundane, everyday things in life has a calming, creative influence on me. Some of my best ideas come when I'm vacuuming or waiting in lines.

We live a short enough time on this earth. A man should do what he loves.

The eyes mirror the heart of a person. An entire life can be seen through them. Love, sorrow, deceit, pain. If you look closely, it's all there.

To be noble,. . .was to account for the life you lived, to always account for your mistakes, and to have dignity and worth.

Don't you think every face tells its own story? Like a book? More like a poem. If you study it long enough, you'll soon find its meaning.

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.

I learned that beauty exists where you least expect to find it.

Near the gardens, Pei stopped and caught her breath. She liked sweet-voiced Song Lee and hoped for the best in dealing with the other sisters, but Pei rememered all too well the different personalities that had affected her life, first at the girls' house, then at the silk factory and sisters' house. Dealing with so many people was often like playing a game of chess. There were so many pieces, all moving in different directions. It was always wise to guard all sides against capture.

Fear seems to be the ruling judge.

Matsu once told me the bridge represented the samurai's difficult path from this world to the afterlife. When you reach the top of the bridge, you can see your way to paradise. I feel as if the past few days have given me a glimpse of that. To simply live a life without fear has been a true paradise.

Just don't ever think you deserve to be beaten.

Grief was an opponent he would never be able to defeat.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's harder than I imagined, to be alone. I suppose I might get used to it, like an empty canvas you slowly begin to fill.

It takes the same amount of energy to worry about the worst thing that can happen as it does to hope for the best. It's up to you to choose.

Nothing ever stands still," she told them. "And neither should you.

we can't hide from it, we are all touched by the madness of it.

He seemed to have a story no one had bothered to discover