Quotes by Japanese Authors - Page 15

Summer night--even the starsare whispering to each other.
Kobayashi Issa
Generally, people who are good at writing letters have no need to write letters. They've got plenty of life to lead inside their own context.
Haruki Murakami
I want to believe that I'm not wrong. I want to believe that life isn't full of darkness. Even if storms come to pass, the sun will shine again. No matter how painful and hard the rain may beat down on me.
Natsuki Takaya
Actually, time had always been passing. I had just managed to avoid thinking about it very much. It would be hard for me to recapture that feeling—life wasn’t so easy anymore. Small things pricked my heart. In those early days, I lived in a world of overwhelming sensations; it was like I had just fallen out of love.
Banana Yoshimoto
I shall now express my utter disgust and anger with you through the piano.
Akira Sasanuma
She was still there inside me now, just as she always was: a life put on hold, a memory I didn't know how to handle.
Banana Yoshimoto
I played with children so that I could learn from them.
Shinichi Suzuki
I am afraid to die, though,' I whispered to myself. These turned out to be my last words. They were not very impressive words, but it was too late to change them.
Haruki Murakami
She tried to think about what lay ahead, but soon gave up. 'Words turn into stone,' Nimit had told her. She settled deep into her seat and closed her eyes. All at once the image came to her of the sky she had seen while swimming on her back. And Erroll Garner's 'I'll Remember April.' Let me sleep, she thought. Just let me sleep. And wait for the dream to come.
Haruki Murakami
Hiroshima is like a nakedly exposed wound inflicted on all mankind.
Kenzaburō Ōe
In zazen, leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don't serve them tea.
Shunryu Suzuki
When I was little, I was out riding my brand-new blue bicycle when I decided to see how far I could keep going without looking back even once. I could feel with my back how my neighborhood was receding, further and further away... but I kept pedaling with all my might, my mind almost going blank. All I could hear was the sound of my own heart, thumping wildly in my ears. Even now, I remember it sometimes. What exactly was I trying to do that day? What was it that I wanted to prove?It's no good. My mind just keeps fogging over. I have this irritating sound stuck in my head. What is it? This sound... Ohh... I know what it is. This is... the sound of emptiness.
Chica Umino
We have no one to go to for help. Not even a church. Anything goes, now that our President Roosevelt signed the order to get rid of us. How can he do this to his own citizens? No lawyer has the courage to defend us. Caucasian friends stay away for fear of being labeled "Jap lovers." There's not a more lonely feeling than to be banished by my own country. There's no place to go.
Kiyo Sato
Yes. We will live the rest of our lives in hell. It's not so bad: as long as you're prepared for it, you can live anywhere.
Mizuki Nomura
In my opinion, if 100% of the people were farming it would be ideal. If each person were given one quarter-acre, that is 1 1/4 acres to a family of five, that would be more than enough land to support the family for the whole year. If natural farming were practiced, a farmer would also have plenty of time for leisure and social activities within the village community. I think this is the most direct path toward making this country a happy, pleasant land.
Masanobu Fukuoka
From the photo albums, every single print of her had been peeled away. Shots of the both of us together had been cut, the parts with her neatly trimmed away, leaving my image behind. Photos of me alone or of mountains and rivers and deer and cats were left intact. Three albums rendered into a revised past. It was as if I'd been alone at birth, alone all my days, and would continue alone.
Haruki Murakami
...rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of education as a process of guiding kids' participation in public life more generally, a public life that includes social, recreational, and civic engagement.
Mizuko Ito
And the fact was that he remembered once thinking that he was fine with dying anywhere at any time… but now, gazing at each corpse in turn, he thought with all his heart, I’m glad I didn’t die there. I have to go home. I’ve still got things to do.
Yukako Kabei
If reality is as equally valuable as fiction, then you should just chalk up the parts of the past you don’t need to your imagination
Ryohgo Narita
I suppose it had something to do with it being a secret, just how much it had meant to me. Maybe all of us at Hailsham had little secrets like that--little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone with our fears and longings. But the very fact that we had such needs would have felt wrong to us at the time--like somehow we were letting the side down.
Kazuo Ishiguro
When my brother,…, was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to grasp and memorize. Father a most learned man, was always regretting the fact: ’Just my luck!’ he would say. ’What a pity she was not born a man!’ But then I gradually realized that people were saying ’It’s bad enough when a man flaunts his Chinese learning; she will come to no good,’ and since I have avoided writing the simplest character.
Murasaki Shikibu
When a mad man found some certain way to express his insanity in original way, he would get promoted to be called an Artist.... Wait, are you talking about me?
Hiroko Sakai
Transient guests are we.
Hideyuki Kikuchi
You are here to remind me of someone I long for, and what is it you long for yourself? We must have been together in an earlier life, you and I.
Murasaki Shikibu
Living like an empty shell is not really living, no matter how many years it might go on
Haruki Murakami
Sad hotels existed everywhere, to be sure, but the Dolphin was in a class of its own. The Dolphin Hotel was conceptually sorry. The Dolphin Hotel was tragic.
Haruki Murakami
...most people in the world don't really use their brains to think. And people who don't think are the ones who don't listen to others.
Haruki Murakami
Words themselves aren't that important. Even if somebody says words that shock you, or make you want to kill them, or make you tremble with emotion, the words themselves you tend to forget in time. Words are just tools we use to express or communicate something.
Ryū Murakami
Deep down, people who deliberately distribute other people’s music and stuff feel contempt for professionals. And it’s not just culture — these days lots of people are contemptuous of everything. Without realizing it, they’re searching for things to despise.
Fuminori Nakamura
Still, this was on the order of a minor miracle, running across someone to whom you can express your feeling so clearly, so completely. Most people go their entire lives without meeting a person like that. It would have been mistake to label this "love". It was more like total empathy.
Haruki Murakami
I could have sworn that the man's eyes were no longer watching his daughter dying in agony, that instead the gorgeous colors of flames and the sight of a woman suffering in them were giving him joy beyond measure.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
I wish I could've lived my life without making any wrong turns. But that's impossible. A path like that doesn't exist. We fail. We trip. We get lost. We make mistakes. And little by little, one step at a time, we push forward. It's all we can do. On our own two feet.
Natsuki Takaya
I'll tell you a secret about storytelling. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty... were not perfect in the beginning. It's only a happy ending on the last page, right? If the princess had everything from the beginning, there wouldn't be a story. Anyone who is imperfect or incomplete can become the main character in the story.
Peach-Pit
Not everybody is looking for a boyfriend with a sports car.
Haruki Murakami
That's what we all do : endlessly take the long way around.
Haruki Murakami
It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. In fact, some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it is that it is unquestionably correct.
Michio Kaku
Anyway, you can be sure of one thing, a man's got to fake just to stay alive.
Osamu Dazai
Artists are those who can evade the verbose.
Haruki Murakami
There's no sense forcing yourself if you don't feel like it. Tell you the truth, I've had sex with lots of guys, but I think I did it mostly out of fear. I was scared not to have somebody putting his arms around me, so I could never say no. That's all. Nothing good ever came of sex like that. All it does is grind down the meaning of life a piece at a time.
Haruki Murakami
I skipped the thirty-one years between 1938 and 1965 and jumped to the section entitled “Junitaki Today.” Of course, the book’s “today” being 1970, it was hardly today’s “today.” Still, writing the history of one town obviously imposed the necessity of bringing it up to a “today.” And even if such a today soon ceases to be today, no one can deny that it is in fact a today. For if a today ceased to be today, history could not exist as history.
Haruki Murakami
I feel like I've swallowed a cloudy sky
Haruki Murakami
In the past, humans hesitated when they took lives, even non-human lives. But society had changed, and they no longer felt that way. As humans grew stronger, I think that we became quite arrogant, losing the sorrow of 'we have no other choice.' I think that in the essence of human civilization, we have the desire to become rich without limit, by taking the lives of other creatures.
Hayao Miyazaki
People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly.
Kakuzō Okakura
Otaguro’s bosom heaved with an ineffable surge of joy. “Every man is fighting,” he murmured. “Every man.
Yukio Mishima
Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about everyday, too many new things we have to learn. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.
Haruki Murakami
If you don't do anything, you simply end up overwhelmed by something happening.
Matsuri Hino
Curiosity can bring guts out of hiding at times, maybe even get them going. But curiosity usually evaporates. Gust have to go for the long haul. Curiosity's like a fun friend you can't really trust. It turns you on and then it leaves you to make it on your own - with whatever guts you can muster
Haruki Murakami
A day in a man’s life is constructed according to whether he accepts or rejects flashes of inspiration.
Eiji Yoshikawa
I wonder what it felt to move to a country where you didn't grow up. I had thought about that often since my sister got married. Do you become a character in a story native to that land, or do you, somewhere in your heart, want to return to your homeland.
Banana Yoshimoto
On the whole, all people are good, or at least they're normal. The frightening thing is that they can suddenly turn bad when it comes to the crunch.
Sōseki Natsume
How can I blame the cherry blossomsFor rejecting this floating world And drifting away as the wind calls them
Shunzei's daughter
There is something in this world which no one has ever seen.It is soft and sweet.If it is spotted, I'm sure everyone will want to have it,Which is why no one has ever seen it.For this world has hidden it quite well, so that it is difficult to obtain.But, there will come a day when it is discovered by somebody,And only those who should obtain it will be able to find it.That is all.
Yuyuko Takemiya
Even if it's a life in shackles, if you have somebody who accepts you for what you really are, how reassuring would that be?
Sui Ishida
I want to live. Doesn't everyone feel the same way?
Yua Kotegawa
If you think about it, an unfair society that makes it possible for you to exploit your abilities to the limit.
Haruki Murakami
That's gotta be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend, and leaving them that way.
Haruki Murakami
Texting and phone calls, fireworks, blends, café au lait, and music. Yesterday's television. Work and beer. The neighbor's dog, or those strange flowers, the way it smells at Maisen. Those ordinary things I talk about with you. With you... I want to talk about love with you.
Tomoko Yamashita
No matter if the enemy has thousands of men, there is fulfillment in simply standing them off and being determined to cut them all down, starting from one end.
Tsunetomo Yamamoto
The mercy of forgiveness is brought from the strength to accept any situation given and faced. Spiritual independence and humbleness toward life makes life like a flowing river of release. What happens will happen anyways, and everybody can make mistakes. The important thing is to learn how to make a better future from the mistake.
Hiroko Sakai
God against man. Man against God. Man against nature. Nature against man. Nature against God. God against nature. Very funny religion!
D.T. Suzuki