Quotes from Murasaki Shikibu

It is so rare to find someone of true understanding; for the most part they judge purely by their own standards and ignore everyone else. So all they see of me is a façade. There are times when I am forced to sit with them and on such occasions I simply ignore their petty criticisms, not because I am particularly shy but because I consider it pointless. As a result, they now look down upon me as a dullard.

Your coldness serves to emphasize my own inadequacy, and makes me feel that the best solution might be to expire.

Now the end has come, and I am filled with sorrow that our ways must part: the path I would rather take is the one that leads to life.

Why do you grieve so uselessly? Every uncertainty is the result of a certainty. There is nothing in this world really to be lamented.

So much for their looks; but their characters - that is a much more difficult matter. We all have our quirks and no one is ever all bad. Then again, it is not possible for everyone to be all things all of the time: attractive, restrained, intelligent, tasteful and trustworthy. We are all different and it is often difficult to know on which aspect to dwell.

Would that, like the smoke of the watch-fires that mounts and vanishes at random in the empty sky, the smouldering flame of passion could burn itself away

I leave you, to go the road we all must go. The road I would choose, if only I could, is the other.

She was gentle and sedate as usual, but evidently absent and preoccupied. Her eyes rested on the dew lying on the grass in the garden, and her ears were intent upon the melancholy singing of the autumn insects. It was as if we were in a real romance.

It is indeed in many ways more comfortable to belong to that section of society whose action are not publicly canvassed and discussed

There is much to be said for cherry blossoms, but they seem so flighty. They are so quick to run off and leave you. And then just when your regrets are the strongest the wisteria comes into bloom, and it blooms on into the summer. There is nothing quite like it. Even the color is somehow companionable and inviting.

My dwelling is but a rustic cottage, but still I should like you to see, at least, the pretty mountain streamlet which waters my garden.