The trick was to refuse to allow your pain to prevent you from living honorably. In Japan, she said, a person learned not to complain or be distracted by suffering. To persevere was always a reflection of the state of one’s inner life, one’s philosophy, and one’s perspective. It was best to accept old age, death, injustice, hardship – all of these were part of living

Work
Guterson is best known as the author of Snow Falling on Cedars (1994) recipient of the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award. Currently he lives on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound and is a co-founder of Field's End an organization for writers. The film was directed by Scott Hicks and starred Ethan Hawke James Cromwell Sam Shepherd and Max von Sydow and went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for cinematography.

David Guterson (pron.