Kobayashi Issa

"New Year's Day-- everything is in blossom! I feel about average."

"What a strange thing! To be alive beneath cherry blossoms."

"No doubt about it, the mountain cuckoo is a crybaby."

 "In this world, we walk on the roof of hell, gazing at flowers."

"Asked how old he was, the boy in the new kimono stretched out all five fingers."

"At my daughter's grave, thirty days after her death:

Windy fall-- these are the scarlet flowers she liked to pick."

- Kobayashi Issa