Why We Broke Up

In the bathroom mirror there was even a smudge of dirt on my neck, and I wiped it off in a hurried flush, the cheap paper towel so rough against my skin that I looked for a scrape in my reflection and then, meeting my own eyes, stood for a sec and tried to figure, like all girls in all mirrors everywhere, the difference between lover and slut. 

~Daniel Handler

Essays in Idleness

Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of spring-- these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to bloom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration--in all things, it is the beginnings and endings that are interesting...If man were never to die away but lingered on forever in the world, how things would lose their power to move us. The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.

~Yoshida Kenko