2 Quotes by Taeko Kōno

In other words, she reflected, they hadn’t known the hardship or the happiness of true conjugal life. But if only they’d been aware that they were lovers, and not husband and wife, and lived out their relationship as it really was, their experience might have been totally different. True, they might have been ostracized, and they would have lost their easy tranquillity — but they might also have felt a keener, more intense kind of joy.

Aren't you in pain, Mother?" she wanted to call out. "Mother, I'm suffering too.