Amida-do dayori (2002)

Kanako Higuchi: Michiko Ueda

Quotes 

• 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.

• Michiko Ueda : I love this ... it's like the mountain's rocking us to sleep.

• Dr. Nakamura : Forgive me for asking, but what are you doing in Yanaka Vilage? Shouldn't you be somewhere closer to the front lines?

  Michiko Ueda : Call me a drop-out if you want, Dr. Nakamura. I don't mind.

  Dr. Nakamura : I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.

  Michiko Ueda : It's all right. I don't think there's anything wrong with it ... In Tokyo I was always trying to be everyone's idea of perfect and at the same time live up to my own ideals. I couldn't take it.

  Dr. Nakamura : I shouldn't have pried. I tend to be solitary by nature. I have a bad habit of testing people to see if they're sympathetic. I'm sorry.

• Michiko Ueda : [after a miscarriage]  They say the child chooses its parents, don't they? And I just wasn't chosen. Why? Why?

• Michiko Ueda : The way you think about life and about death changes as you get older.

• Michiko Ueda : A good death is part of a good life.