In life there are two things which are dependable. The pleasures of the flesh and the pleasures of literature.

- Sei Shonagon

Pleasing things: finding a large number of tales that one has not read before. Or acquiring the second volume of a tale whose first volume one has en…

- Sei Shonagon

A man who has nothing in particular to recommend him discusses all sorts of subjects at random as if he knew everything.

- Sei Shonagon

To wash one's hair, make one's toilet, and put on scented robes; even if not a soul sees one, these preparations still produce an inner pleasure.

- Sei Shonagon

One is telling a story about old times when someone breaks in with a little detail that he happens to know, implying that one's own version is inaccu…

- Sei Shonagon

A good lover will behave just as elegantly at dawn as at any other time.

- Sei Shonagon

If someone with whom one is having an affair keeps on mentioning some woman whom he knew in the past, however long ago it is since they separated, on…

- Sei Shonagon

If letters did not exist, what dark depressions would come over one! When one has been worrying about something and wants to tell a certain person ab…

- Sei Shonagon

There is nothing in the whole world so painful as feeling that one is not liked.

- Sei Shonagon