Quotes by Japanese Authors - Page 37

The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.
Haruki Murakami
And even if you do wear a maid outfit, it doesn't change the fact that you're strong or that you're smart or that you try really hard at everything you do. I think you'd still deserve to walk with your head held high.
Hiro Fujiwara
We're going to explore the outside world someday, right? Far beyond these walls, there's flaming water, land made of ice, and fields of sand spread wide. It's the world my parents wanted to go to.
Hajime Isayama
My house burned downBut anyway, it was afterThe flower petals had already fallen
Tachibana Higuchi
We are going to hell together. But we're coming back alive. Don't forget that.
Atsuko Asano
The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don't want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can’t turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.
Haruki Murakami
People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they'll go to any length to live longer. But don't think that's the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive then in a fog, and I believe running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life — and for me, for writing as whole. I believe many runners would agree
Haruki Murakami
Why do you so earnestly seek the truth in distant places?Look for delusion and truth in thebottom of your own heart.
Ryōkan
If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.
Haruki Murakami
Describe plum-blossoms?Better than my verses...whiteWordless Butterflies
Bashō Matsuo
Amid the moon and the stars, amid the clouds of the night, amid the hills which bordered on the sky with their magnificent silhouette of pointed cedars, amid the speckled patches of the moon, amid the temple buildings that emerged sparkling white out of the surrounding darkness - amid all this, I was intoxicated by the pellucid beauty of Uiko's treachery.
Yukio Mishima
The feeling of the wind, the sound of rushing water, the sense of sunlight breaking through the clouds, the colors of flowers as the seasons changed - everything around him felt changed, as if they had all been recast.
Haruki Murakami
There are three reasons I failed. Not enough training. Not enough training. And not enough training.
Haruki Murakami
To tell you the truth, I used to consider it a disgrace to be found ignorant by other people. But now, I find that I am not ashamed of knowing less than others, and I'm less inclined to force myself to read books. In short, I have grown old and decrepit.
Sōseki Natsume
To break free from this vexatious and awful never-ending cycle, this flood of outrageous thoughts, and to long for nothing more than simply to sleep--how clean, how pure, the mere thought of it is exhilarating.
Osamu Dazai
In dreams begins responsiblities.
Haruki Murakami
In this world, there is no absolute good, no absolute evil," the man said. "Good and evil are not fixed, stable entities, but are continually trading places. A good may be transformed into an evil in the next second. And vice versa. Such was the way of the world that Dostoevsky depicted in The Brothers Karamazov. The most important thing is to maintain the balance between the constantly moving good and evil. If you lean too much in either direction, it becomes difficult to maintain actual morals. Indeed, balance itself is the good.
Haruki Murakami
In any case, though, I believe that I have not been fair to you and that, as a result, I must have led you around in circles and hurt you deeply.
Haruki Murakami
Getting carried away is stupid, it won't get me anywhere.-Nana Komatsu
Ai Yazawa
I'm not going to die. Because I'm the one who will protect you!
Asuna
Every person should decide for himself how happy, or unhappy, our society might be.
Haruki Murakami
Nakajima's presence didn't put any pressure on me, either. Quite the opposite: there was a warmth in the core of my chest when he was around.
Banana Yoshimoto
In times like these I always cheered myself up with a certain story. I forgot just when I first heard it, or who I heard it from... but, back when I was young it would cheer me up when I was feeling depressed. Basically, you think of life in terms of a single 24 hour day. So if you take the average human lifespan, to be around 72 years, then dividing that by 24... that comes to 3 years per hour. Meaning, that if you were 18 it'd only be 6 AM! 6 in the morning is nothing! Schools aren't even open by then! It's only been a couple of hours before sunrise, the day's just begun! So if you're 18, you can still fix you life by then! In fact even if you were 30 year old, that's still only 10 AM! The sun's still high, and there's still 2 hours until noon! You still have the whole afternoon to fix your life! You could still make something of yourself. I've always been thinking that, but... I'm now 45 years old! 45 divided by 3 is 15 meaning, that the time 3PM! Ring Ring Ring! I can hear the clock, ringing in my mind! There's only 2 hours before work is over at 5PM! I can't redo anything, it's almost time to go home already.
Nobuyuki Fukumoto
The "Wet Tongue Gets Stuck To A Frozen Flagpole" attack!
Hiromu Arakawa
The real world is in a much darker and deeper place than this, and most of it is occupied by jellyfish and things. We just happen to to forget all that. Don't you agree? Two-thirds of earth's surface is ocean, and all we can see with the naked eye is the surface: the skin.
Haruki Murakami
people's hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what's at the bottom. All you can do is guess from what comes floating to the surface every once in a while
Haruki Murakami
I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.
Yohji Yamamoto
All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? - I don't know.
Osamu Dazai
I only need 1 thing: Everything" - Sengoku Nadeko
NisiOisiN
Don’t you see? You and he might never cross paths again. Of course, a chance meeting could occur, and I hope it happens. I really do, for your sake. But realistically speaking, you have to see there’s a huge possibility you’ll never be able to meet him again. And even if you do meet, he might already be married to somebody else. He might have two kids. Isn’t that so? And in that case, you may have to live the rest of your life alone, never being joined with the one person you love in all the world. Don’t you find that scary?
Haruki Murakami
Hatsuharu Sohma: [after tripping Kyo] If I hadn't had tripped you you wouldn't have stopped now would you. [addressing the audience] Hatsuharu Sohma: By the way what I just did was very dangerous. And if it had been anyone but Kyo they probably would have been hurt pretty badly so don't try it at home. Kyo Sohma: Don't try it here and who are you even talking to
Natsuki Takaya
I thought of the new stone, of my new wife, and of the newly buried white bones beneath us, and I felt that fate had made sport of us all.
Sōseki Natsume
I, too, am among those unable to step outside the realm of worldly distinctions. I hide my excesses of joy and sorrow beneath a robe of false contentment and drown in a pool of tears unseen by others. How I envy those naive enough to covet the glory of others. Do they not realize that tears fall not only on the sleeves of worn and tattered kimonos? The jewels that spill, glittering, onto my brocade are the very water of life, but they are mistaken for mere ornament. Although no one notices, my heart is shattered into a thousand pieces.
Shikin Shimizu
Maybe from as early as when you're five or six, there's been a whisper going at the back of your head, saying: “One day, maybe not so long from now, you'll get to know how it feels.” So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you – of how you were brought into this world and why – and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it's a cold moment. It's like walking past a mirror you've walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.
Kazuo Ishiguro
The economy is after all driven by people. No matter how dire the situation may be, as long as people are firm, a turnaround, revival and progress can be possible.
Daisaku Ikeda
Did not we vow that we would neither of us be either before or after the other even in travelling the last journey of life? And can you find it in your heart to leave me now?
Murasaki Shikibu
it isn't that we're alone or not alonewhose voice do you want mine? yours?
Ikkyu
A moderate silence ensued. A neutral-to-slightly-positive silence. True, silence is still silence, except when you think about it too much.
Haruki Murakami
A name could be either a ghost or a portent depending on which side of time you were standing. The name Whaletown had become a mere specter of the past, a crepuscular Pacific shimmer, but the name Desolation Sound still hovered in the liminal space and felt to her both oracular and haunted.
Ruth Ozeki
So then do you think it's true that he killed someone? And what about the part where he wishes he could die?""If it IS true that he killed someone, that's bad."In any case, "it seems like something is bothering Shuji" was now a contender for the Understatement of the Century.
Mizuki Nomura
Pure has become impure,Impure has now become pure.Good has now become bad,Bad has become evil.For one to live is to die,for one to die is to live.-Kikyo
Rumiko Takahashi
The gods lie. They lie because it's the best they can do. We reach out for their lies and we keep on living.
Kaori Ozaki
I don't really know a whole lot about complicated, worldly things. But I think parents and siblings, they need to be able to care for each other unconditionally. How many people could you risk your life to protect? Not that many, I bet. Everyone's top priority is taking care of themselves. But if there's anyone who can overcome that, it's flesh and blood. If you understand that feeling, then you can look at other people, and realize, this person's family cares about them, too. That's a really heavy feeling. When you think about that, it becomes a lot harder to do horrible things to them. So I think that love for your family....is really at the root of what it means to care for other people.
Mohiro Kitoh
There are 3 reasons for why you can't beat me. First, I'm better looking than you are. Second, your blows are too light. And third, there's nothing in the world I can't tear up.
Akimine Kamijyo
But I had deliberately acquired the habit of closing my eyes even to such obvious assumptions, just as though I did not want to miss a single opportunity for tormenting myself. This is a trite device, often adopted by persons who, cut off from all other means of escape, retreat into the safe haven of regarding themselves as objects of tragedy.
Yukio Mishima
If an angelic being fell from the sky and tried to live in this world of ours I think even they would commit many wrongs.
Sui Ishida
That amazing time in our lives is gone, and will never return. All the beautiful possibilities we had then have been swallowed up in the flow of time.
Haruki Murakami
Love is the kind of thing that's already happening by the time you notice it, that's how it works, and no matter how old you get, that doesn't change. Except that you can break it up into two entirely distinct types -- love where there's an end in sight and love where there isn't.
Banana Yoshimoto
Is the love you have for me, and the feelings I have for you forever parallel, with no chance of intersecting?
Atsuko Asano
[Kagura is doing laundry and tries to wring out Kyou's shirt causing it to rip in two ]Kyo Sohma: Tell me what I think just happened didn't just happen Kagura: My love !Kyo Sohma: My shirt!
Natsuki Takaya
Nothing's perfect, the world's not perfect. But it's there for us, trying the best it can; that's what makes it so damn beautiful.
Hiromu Arakawa
Do all kids have to worry about their parents’ mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it’s the other way around.
Ruth Ozeki
The special quality of hell is to see everything clearly down to the last detail.
Yukio Mishima
What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.
Kazuo Ishiguro
I would like to think of my 'ignorance' less as a personal failing and more as a massive cultural trend, an example of doubling, of psychic numbing, that characterizes the end of the millennium. If we can’t act on knowledge, then we can’t survive without ignorance.
Ruth Ozeki
Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that has nothing to do with you, This storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones.
Haruki Murakami
Whenever she felt like crying, she would instead become angry—at someone else or at herself—which meant that it was rare for her to shed tears.
Haruki Murakami
Any connoisseur knows you've got to be drunk to really enjoy a good romance.
Osamu Dazai
And our ages never bothered her from the very beginning. I was married, but that didn’t matter, either. She seemed to consider things like age and family and income to be of the same a priori order as shoe size and vocal pitch and the shape of one’s fingernails. The sort of thing that thinking about won’t change one bit. And that much said, well, she had a point.
Haruki Murakami
Well… Actually, just read any books you find interesting will do. Even books that seem boring aren’t actually that dull. It’s just that the reader couldn’t find the interesting parts.
Yukiya Murasaki