Quotes by Japanese Authors - Page 23

Like any organic entity, a system of consciousness manifests itself through the orderly, differentiated development of a certain unifying reality.
Kitarō Nishida
Yes, just like those flowers. There's something strained, but there's beauty in that. Something like that
Koushun Takami
For darkness terrifies. It swallows you, warps you, nullifies you. Who alive can possibly profess confidence in darkness? In the dark, you can't see.
Haruki Murakami
Such a little childTo send to be a priestling...Icy poverty
Shiki
It was clear that he didn't remember me from one day to the next. The note clipped to his sleeve simply informed him that it was not our first meeting, but it could not bring back the memory of the time we had spent together.
Yōko Ogawa
Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.
Kakuzō Okakura
A great revolution in just one single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a society and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of humankind.
Daisaku Ikeda
Frankly, if her face wasn't so cute, I would most certainly have been punching it.
Wataru Watari
Memories? Pheh. Those just get in the way of living.
Tsukumizu
I was impressed by the delicate weaving of the numbers. No matter how carefully you unraveled a thread, a single moment of inattention could leave you stranded, with no clue what to do next. In all his years of study, the Professor had managed to glimpse several pieces of the lace. I could only hope that some part of him remembered the exquisite pattern.
Yōko Ogawa
My thatched hut; the whole sky Is its roof The mountains are its hedge, And it has the sea for a garden. I’m inside with nothing at all, Not even a bag, And yet there are visitors who say “It’s hidden behind a bamboo door” — tMuso Soseki
Musō Soseki
Thank you for not growing to hate humans.
Yuki Midorikawa
born born everything is always bornthinking about it try not to
Ikkyu
By nature, it's impossible to describe enlightenment! How do you plan on sharing your enlightenment? Hahaha, that's impossible. Wake up! That'll be the end of the world if you ever succeed!
Osamu Tezuka
It takes a lot of strength to hold onto and care for the things we love, so why is it that god seems to have made humans unable to conjure up that degree of power and love?
Ai Yazawa
Hey. I've just thought of something which I shouldn't think about. Hey. Whoa, wait a minute. I feel like I'm thinking of even ore things I shouldn't. After all, I can't want, nor wish for it, because I'll never get it. Even though there's no way that guy's life will belong to me. Why am I this upset? We met more than ten years ago. But even on the day we first kissed, and the day we first slept together, somehow, he has never... told me he likes me, much less that he loves me. I've never said it either. And yet, I've only told him to stay by my side. I thought that was enough. I hate this. Why am I fixated on that man? I don't want to realise that now. That I want him to love me. I want him to love me. I want him to love me so much I could die.
Natsuki Kizu
Does it seem like I'm out of it? No you seemed like you were in total control as you fell down the stairs.
Aya Nakahara
He decided not to ask for details. Better to avoid exposing his ignorance even further.
Haruki Murakami
You've already decided what you're going to do, and all that's left is to set the wheels in motion. I mean, it's your life. Basically, you gotta go with what you think is right.
Haruki Murakami
I am a lonely man," he said again that evening. "And is it not possible that you are also a lonely person? But I am an older man, and I can live with my loneliness, quietly. You are young, and it must be difficult to accept your loneliness. You must sometimes want to fight it.""But I am not at all lonely.""Youth is the loneliest time of all. Otherwise, why should you come so often to my house?"Sensei continued: "But surely, when you are with me, you cannot rid yourself of your loneliness. I have not it in me to help you forget it. You will have to look elsewhere for the consolation you seek. And soon, you will find that you no longer want to visit me."As he said this, Sensei smiled sadly.
Sōseki Natsume
Just by being with me, I feel like I have ruined a lot of things around you.
Mika Yamamori
Memory is like fiction: or else it' fiction that's like memory.
Haruki Murakami
I guess time doesn't flow in order, does it - A, B, C, D? It just sort of goes where it feels like going.
Haruki Murakami
In the end, like so many beautiful promises in our lives, that dinner date never came to be.
Haruki Murakami
Buddhism holds that everything is in constant flux. Thus the question is whether we are to accept change passively and be swept away by it or whether we are to take the lead and create positive changes on our own initiative. While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.
Daisaku Ikeda
Of course it hurt that we could never love each other in a physical way. We would have been far more happy if we had. But that was like the tides, the change of seasons--something immutable, an immovable destiny we could never alter. No matter how cleverly we might shelter it, our delicate friendship wasn't going to last forever. We were bound to reach a dead end. That was painfully clear.
Haruki Murakami
It's lonely to say goodbye. Very lonely. Partings are the beginnings of new meetings. Beginnings happen because there are endings…Meetings. Beginnings. It's not too late…to believe in them after the fact.
Natsuki Takaya
Words left their mouths to hang frozen in midair.
Haruki Murakami
I'd rather be in danger with you than be safe without you.
Fuyumi Ono
Civilization is communication. When that which should be expressed and transmitted is lost, civilization comes to an end.
Haruki Murakami
Only with a clear mind will you be able to see who is truly in your heart.
CLAMP
Hatred is like a tow-edged sword. When you cut the other person, you cut yourself.
Haruki Murakami
You just noticed? You're slow...
Tite Kubo
Food and medicine are not two different things: they are the front and back of one body. Chemically grown vegetables may be eaten for food, but they cannot be used as medicine.
Masanobu Fukuoka
It was as if-this is something I thought of only later, of course-she was gently peeling bcd one layer after another hat covered a person's heart, a very sensual feeling.
Haruki Murakami
Flowers are fragile and ephemeral...Even if you meant to protect them with a surrounding fence from wind and rain, they would die without sunlight...and a spindly fence has no power against a strong wind. - Haibara Ai
Gosho Aoyama
Partings are the beginnings of new meetings.Beginnings happen because there are endings.
Natsuki Takaya
Ruth was a novelist, and novelists, Oliver asserted, should have cats and books.
Ruth Ozeki
A vampire's thirst can only be quenched by the blood of their loved ones.
Matsuri Hino
THE FLECKS OF MY ENEMY'S BLOOD THAT STAIN THIS SUIT. THEY'RE MY PRIDE AND JOY. "THIS SUIT LOOKS WHITE BECAUSE OF THE RED OF THE BLOOD ON IT." THAT'S WHY I FIGHT.FOR YOU BIG BRO. THE AWSOMELY INSANE. TO MAKE YOU AWSOMELY HAPPY...WHETHER AT AOGIRI OR AT GOAT, I'VE FOUGHT AT THE VERY FRONT LINES. ALL THE WAY.AND TOWARDS THE END, I EVEN LEARNED A FEW NEW WORDS. I HAD FUN. IF ONLY I HAD KNOWN A FEW MORE WORDS, I'D HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TALK TO YOU MORE, BIG BRO.I THINK ABOUT THAT SOMETIMES. I DON'T THINK JUST LIVING IS THAT BIG OF A DEAL. I REALLY BELIEVE I'LL BE ABLE TO SEE YOU IF I DIE.SO I'M NOT SCARED. DEATH ISN'T THAT BAD. I HATE THE FACT THAT I LOST, THOUGHBUT YOU KNOW, BRO. I... I'M NOT SAD AT ALL.NAKI
Sui Ishida
I'm not the protagonist of a novel or anything...I'm just a normal college student who likes to read...But...If I were to write a book with me as the main character...It would be......A tragedy.
Sui Ishida
Nos-tal-gic,’ Akira said, as though it were a word he had been struggling to find. Then he said a word in Japanese, perhaps the Japanese for ‘nostalgic.’ ‘Nos-tal-gic. It is good to be nos-tal-gic. Very important.’‘Really, old fellow?’‘Important. Very important. Nostalgic. When we nostalgic, we remember. A world better than this world we discover when we grow. We remember and wish good world come back again. So very important. Just now, I had dream. I was boy. Mother, Father, close to me. in our house.’He fell silent and continued to gaze across the rubble.‘Akira,’ I said, sensing that the longer this talk went on, the greater was some danger I did not wish fully to articulate. ‘We should move on. We have much to do.
Kazuo Ishiguro
She's still quite fit at ninety, fit enough to chew her food with her own teeth. Apparently she grew up in a house without a bar of soap, let alone tooth powder. Her family didn't have electricity until she started elementary school, and she'd never seen a train until the tracks of the Koumi line were laid in Saku. It's exactly as if she were born in the Edo period. These days, you only have to drive for five minutes to find a sparkling clean convenience store, with bright lights above shelves stocked with everything you could possibly need. Land that used to be fields of mulberry bushes is now crisscrossed by smooth, wide roads lined with video rental stores and fast food restaurants.I would say O-Hatsu has seen more changes in her lifetime than I have. After all, she lived for most of the century when this country was changing faster than it ever had before. Even so, I have a feeling that the inside of her head has remained much the same as when she was a girl. By "the inside of her head" I mean the way she sees the world around her—the language she uses to make sense of it. In my case, the very way I looked at the world and the words I used to understand it had altogether changed.
Minae Mizumura
Who hasn't wanted to die at one time or another?
Ryū Murakami
Jean-Jacques Rousseau defined civilization as when people build fences. A very perceptive observation. And it’s true—all civilization is the product of a fenced-in lack of freedom. The Australian Aborigines are the exception, though. They managed to maintain a fenceless civilization until the seventeenth century. They’re dyed-in-the-wool free. They go where they want, when they want, doing what they want. Their lives are a literal journey. Walkabout is a perfect metaphor for their lives. When the English came and built fences to pen in their cattle, the Aborigines couldn’t fathom it. And, ignorant to the end of the principle at work, they were classified as dangerous and antisocial and were driven away, to the outback. So I want you to be careful. The people who build high, strong fences are the ones who survive the best. You deny that reality only at the risk of being driven into the wilderness yourself.
Haruki Murakami
Because If you ever think of me in the future I want you to remember me smiling
Eiichirō Oda
The reason why darkness terrifying for us, he reflected, is that there remains in us the instinctive fear the primitive man had when there was as yet no light.
Shūsaku Endō
People have hope because they cannot see Death standing behind them.
Tite Kubo
Telling lies is a really terrible thing. These days, lies and silence are the two greatest sins in human society you might say. In reality, we tell lots of lies, and we often break into silence. However, if we were constant;y talking year-round, and telling only the truth truth would probably lose some of its value.
Haruki Murakami
Sorry I'm late, I'm afraid I got lost on the path of life-Kakashi Sensei
Masashi Kishimoto
Idiot.People say that those who call others idiots are the real idiots. I don't care if I'm an idiot, so I'll call you one. Idiot! You should have told me this earlier! Okay, he's dead! I'm gonna kill him for sure. He's totally dead, guaranteed! -ShizuoWell, no. I'm the Headless Rider! I'm totally fine. -CeltyNo, no, no. That's not even the problem here! If he pulled a blade on you, that's instant death. Gonna kill him...-ShizuoWhat about your job? Aren't you on a break right now? -CeltyI don't give a shit. -ShizuoCome on. I'm not going to let you get fired because of me. Besides, I still need more information to track him down. I'll make the preparations, so just wait for now. -CeltyFine. But try to make it quick. Gonna kill him...
Ryohgo Narita
To be able to stay beside a beloved one is the special privilege of a friend.
Nakamura Shungiku
There's a bug inside you. Growing in you, eating everything you've forced yourself to forget, everything you don't want to think about. Your bug will decide your fate one day. And... chances are, you will die because of it.
Kouhei Kadono
If that type of bad God did exist, then we could go on living in good health. If we could push the responsibility for our misery onto God, then we would have that much more peace of mind, wouldn't we?
Tatsuhiko Takimoto
Your "scared" and my "scared" are two different things.''What's that supposed to mean?' she asked.'As you get older, you don't recover from things so easy.''As you get older, you also get tired?''Yeah,' I said, 'you get tired.
Haruki Murakami
This is what it means to live on. When granted hope, a person uses it as fuel, as a guidepost to life. It is impossible to live without hope.
Haruki Murakami
Your addiction to thinking will come back to haunt you.
Sōseki Natsume
Some things in life are too complicated to explain in any language.
Haruki Murakami
Inside me, there is an organ more important than my heart. Although you can't see it, I feel it going right through my head and down to my legs, and I know that it exists inside me. It's the one that lets me stand up and walk forward. So that I can walk forward, without ever trembling. If I stopped here I feel like it would break...My soul would break. Even more than if my heart stops beating, to me that is the most important. Even if I become senile and my back gets bent, I still have to walk forward.
Hideaki Sorachi
The place of happiness you can return to is in the arms of the one you love.
Yuki Yoshihara