- Major Gruver: [at a traditional tea ceremony: watching, as a Japanese man spends a lot of time carefully making a cup of tea] He makes such a production of everything.
- Hana-ogi: The pleasure does not lie in the end itself... it's the pleasurable steps *to* that end.
- Major Gruver: You know what I saw yesterday? I saw two rocks that just got married.
- Captain Bailey: [slightly confused] You what?
- Major Gruver: I saw two rocks that got married. And they looked very happy together, too.
- Captain Bailey: Oh, I'll bet they did.
- Major Gruver: Are you gonna sit there with your bare face hangin' out and tell me you never heard of Tanabata?
- Nakamura: What are you really afraid of, Miss Webster? You don't think it would enter Major Gruver's mind to marry a Japanese girl?
- Eileen Webster: I don't know.
- Nakamura: Then permit me to reassure you. I think Major Gruver is brave, but, uh, not so brave enough to face the censure that would result from such a marriage. As for our famous, honored Hana-ogi, there are many Japanese - most of them, in fact - who look upon marriage to an Occidental with as much distaste as your people do to one of us.
- Nakamura: [continues] I do not feel that way, but then I have had the privilege of traveling in your country and knowing some great people there. And I am especially conscious at this moment that beauty is not confined to any one race.
- Hana-ogi: [watching a traditional Japanese puppet performance about two doomed lovers] It is custom for lovers to die together when they can no longer face life.
- Katsumi: [dreamily] It is so beautiful...
- Joe Kelly: "Beautiful"? They're gonna' die, aren't they?
- Katsumi: [dreamily] They will live in another world, on a beautiful lake, floating always together, like water lily.
- Joe Kelly: [makes a face] Sure.
- Joe Kelly: [Major Gruver is entering Joe Kelly's Japanese home for the first time] Hey, off with the shoes. You don't wear shoes in a Japanese house.
- Major Gruver: Okay, comin' off... What about the pants?
- Hana-ogi: [pointing to some large rocks right off the seashore] You see the rope between the rocks?
- Major Gruver: Yeah?
- Hana-ogi: That is a Shinto sign, showing they are married.
- Major Gruver: [slightly confused] What, the rocks?
- Hana-ogi: Yes... they've been together so long, our people thought it was time they should get married. They look well together, don't you think?
- Major Gruver: Yeah, they make a handsome little couple!