Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility #1)

by Yukio Mishima

This instinctive rejection of anyone who showed him affection, this need to react with cold disdain, were a failing of Kiyoaki’s that no one could have known better than Honda, who saw this pride as a kind of tumor that had taken hold of Kiyoaki when he was no more than thirteen and had first had to endure people making a fuss over his looks.

Those who lack imagination have no choice but to base their conclusions on the reality they see around them. But on the other hand, those who are imaginative have a tendency to build fortified castles they have designed themselves, and to seal off every window in them.

I’ve known supreme happiness, and I’m not greedy enough to want what I have to go on forever. Every dream ends.

The path we’re taking is not a road, Kiyo, it’s a pier, and it ends someplace where the sea begins.