Quotes from Leonard Koren

But when does something's destiny finally come to fruition? Is the plant complete when it flowers? When it goes to seed? When the seeds sprout? When everything turns into compost?

Things wabi-sabi have no need for the reassurance of status or the validation of market culture. They have no need for documentation of provenance. Wabi-sabi-ness in no way depends on knowledge of the creator's background or personality. In fact, it is best if the creator is no distinction, invisible, or anonymous.

Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness.

If you're not attempting to get someone to see, feel, think, or act in a particular manner, why bother communicating at all?

Whether it's trying to convince others that something is more true, more virtuous, or more desirable--all communication is rhetoric in action.

The closer things get to nonexistence, the more exquisite and evocative they become. Consequently to experience wabi-wabi means you have to slow way down, be patient, and look very closely.

There is also the memory of the hut in the mind of the traveler-- and in the mind of the reader reading this description. Wabi-sabi, in its purest, most idealised form, is precisely about these delicate traces, this faint evidence, at the border of nothingness.

Is the plant complete when it flowers? When it goes to seed? When the seeds sprout? When everything turns into compost?

In the realm of aesthetics, reason is always subordinate to perception.