Amida-do dayori (2002)

Tanie Kitabayashi: Oume

Quotes 

• Oume : These 'novels' of yours ... are they 'lies' or are they true stories?

  Takao Ueda : Well, they are not 'true'. Maybe they're lies told in order to tell the truth. All right, then ... you can't eat burdock straight from the field but you can cook it to make kinpira. If you ask which is 'real', it's burdock from the field ... but if it wasn't kinpira you'd never know how good it was.

• Oume : When it rains and I can't get around much, I don't sleep very well.

  Takao Ueda : What do you do then?

  Oume : Then I just listen to the water flowing over there and imagine that I was water, too. I think of myself just flowing along, and suddenly there I am asleep.

  Oume : When you turn to water, where do you flow to?

  Oume : Well, I flow with the water ... way, way, far away ... and about time I'm thinking I've reached the sea, there I am asleep.

  Michiko Ueda : We hear the sound of the river every night, but I don't feel like that.

  Oume : You're both still young. You've still got to listen to a lot of things. The river's there, and you have to hear it ... but the sound of water's no use to you. It's something for old folks to listen to.

• Oume : Amitabha! May your name be praised! Heal Sayuri, please! May your name be praised! ... I'm worried sick about her, you know. But when I sit here and look out over the valley after while, it brings me peace.