"Everything I touch with tenderness, alas, pricks like a bramble."

"On a branch floating downriver a cricket, singing."

"The annals of Japanese literary history abound with stories of suffering literati. [...] None of these, however, seem…"

"The pathway I marked when last year I made my way into Yoshino— I abandon now to visit blossoms I have not yet seen."

"Even in one’s sleep, it is dreams of this world one sees, and of no other; just as there is no dawning here that brin…"

"In this art of poetry, those who speak ill of Teika should be denied the protection of the gods and Buddhas and conde…"

"When I look upon the rich sheen of summer hairs in my new brush, I am saddened by a deer drawn at night to a hunter's…"

"As if to say— "Isn't it true for men, as well: that the more the words, the less they are of value?"— the cuckoo does…"

"I had forgotten— as I kept on forgetting to remind myself that those who vow to forget are the ones who can't forget."

"All these images from a world of long ago— of what good are they? Pine winds, come—please blow away these unforgotten…"