Quotes by Japanese Authors - Page 43

13. A Buddha In Tokyo in th Meiji era there lived two prominent teachers of opposite characteristics. One, Unsho, an instructor in Shingon, kept Buddha's precepts scrupulously. He never drank intoxicants, nor did he eat after eleven o'clock in the morning. The other teacher, Tanzan, a professor of philosophy at the Imperial University, never observed the precepts. When he felt like eating he ate, and when he felt like sleeping in the daytime he slept. One da Unsho visited Tanzan, who was drinking wine at the time, not even a drop of which is supposed to touch the tongue of a Buddhist. "Hello, brother," Tanzan greeted him. "Won't you have a drink?" "I never drink!" exclaimed Unsho solemnly. "One who never drinks is not even human," said Tanzan. "Do you mean to call me inhuman just because I do not indulge in intoxicating liquids!" exclaimed Unsho in anger. "Then if I am not human, wht am I?" "A Buddha," answered Tanzan.
Nyogen Senzaki
Her cry was the saddest sound of orgasm that I had ever heard.
Haruki Murakami
There is an instinctive withdrawal for the sake of preservation, a closure that assumes the order of completion. Winter is a season unto itself.
Haruki Murakami
When did you become a woman?"-HatoriHow dare you ask that after you have seen me naked so many times..."-YukiGASP! No it cant be! Yuki-kun, does that mean..." fan club girlsNO! He's my doctor..."Yuki
Natsuki Takaya
Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.
Haruki Murakami
It was two years ago that I first met Yuki. I remember that painfully thin figure covered in dirt: malnourished, exhausted and carrying a sleeping child in his arms like it's the most precious thing in the world.
Kyuugou
Obession makes everything possible
Novala Takemoto
College is fun as long as you don't die.
Tsugumi Ohba
There weren't any curtains in the windows, and the books that didn't fit into the bookshelf lay piled on the floor like a bunch of intellectual refugees.
Haruki Murakami
I didn't care whether I had gotten dressed, or what state my hair was in or anything– it didn't matter. I felt close to him, and I'd come to regard him as just another part of the scenery.
Banana Yoshimoto
When one devotes oneself to meditation mental burdens unnecessary worries and wandering thoughts drop off one by one life seems to run smoothly and pleasantly. A student may now depend on intuition to make decisions. As one acts on intuition second thought with its dualism doubt and hesitation does not arise.
Nyogen Senzaki
Sheer effort enables those with nothing to surpass those with privilege and position.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
It might be a little silly for someone getting to be my age to put this into words, but I just want to make sure I get the facts down clearly : I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two everyday running alone, not speaking to anyone as well as four of five hours at my desk, to be neither difficult or boring.
Haruki Murakami
Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love.
Morihei Ueshiba
The only thing you really have to prove is yourself.
Tadahiko Nagao
My role in all of this is very simple. I make clothing like armor. My clothing protects you from unwelcome eyes.
Yohji Yamamoto
Just because you know it [my past]... doesn't mean that my wounds are a weight you have to carry. ~Kurogane-san
CLAMP
sick of it whatever it's called sick of the namesI dedicate every pore to what's here
Ikkyu
How can I put this? There's a king of gap between what I think is real and what's really real. I get this feeling like some kind of little something-or-other is there, somewhere inside me... like a burglar is in the house, hiding in a wardrobe... and it comes out every once in a while and messes up whatever order or logic I've established for myself. The way a magnet can make a machine go crazy.
Haruki Murakami
Ichigo: You got that? Huh?! I'm the rescuer, so you just SHUT UP!!Rukia: Wha--wha'd you say? A rescuer isn't supposed to ignore the rescuee!Ichigo: Yeah? And what kind of rescuee complains about the rescue!? Why don't you go sit in a corner and tremble in fear and cry out "Save me! Save me!" like you're supposed to?! tremble!
Tite Kubo
Put a tiger on your tank
murakami
There is nothing more difficult than understanding human mentality. My master's present mental state is very far from clear; is he feeling angry or lighthearted, or simply seeking solace in the scribblings of some dead philosopher? One just can't tell whether he's mocking the world or yearning to be accepted into its frivolous company, whether he is getting furious over some piddling little matter or holding himself aloof from worldly things. Compared to such complexities, cats are truly simple. If we want to eat, we eat; if we want to sleep, we sleep; when we are angry, we are angry utterly; when we cry, we cry with all the desperation of extreme commitment to our grief. Thus we never keep things like diaries. For what would be the point? No doubt human beings like my two-faced master find it necessary to keep diaries in order to display in a darkened room that true character so assiduously hidden from the world. But among cats both our four main occupations (walking, standing, sitting and lying down) and such incidental activities as excreting waste are pursued quite openly. We live our diaries, and consequently have no need to keep a daily record as a means of maintaining our real characters. Had I the time to keep a diary, I'd use that time to better effect; sleeping on the veranda.
Sōseki Natsume
No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.
Haruki Murakami
When dawn comes, that memory gradually distances...Tonight, I will bring it to sleep with me, so that will not be taken away by the waves of the night...
Ai Yazawa
Humans are suspicious and jealous creatures. When they see something perfect, they want to find a flaw.
Gosho Aoyama
Beyond doubt it would speedily verify the proverb that a nation must ravage itself before foreigners can ravage it, a man must despise himself before others can despise him.
Yukio Mishima
Treading along in this dreamlike, illusory realm,Without looking for the traces I may have left;A cuckoo's song beckons me to return home;Hearing this, I tilt my head to seeWho has told me to turn back;But do not ask me where I am going,As I travel in this limitless world,Where every step I take is my home.
Dōgen
I don't want other people to mention my "self". Besides if I can be changed by a few words, then that wouldn't be my "self" would it?
Hikigaya Hachiman
[T]he very color of the air in the place I was born was different, the smell of the earth was special, redolent with memories of my parents.
Sōseki Natsume
I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.
Haruki Murakami
The true meaning of the 'samurai' is one who serves and adheres to the power of love.
Morihei Ueshiba
If I were just in trousers, somehow I could go out into the world. It would make no difference whether I was naked from the waist up and my feet bare just as long as I had trousers on. Otherwise if you go walking around the streets without trousers, no matter how new your shoes and how elegant your coat, it’s enough to raise a big hue and cry. Enlightened society is a kind of trouser society.
Kōbō Abe
Before I can say anything, It dissolves in my throat And turns into tears.
Mika Yamamori
When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. That's what I think. It's just a form of sincerity.
Haruki Murakami
You're not completely alone, you have me! Even if the entire world turns its back on you, you'll still be the strongest as long as you have me!
Kyo Shirodaira
In the city fields Contemplating cherry-trees...Strangers are like friends
Kobayashi Issa
Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end.
Haruki Murakami
You can hide memories, but you can't erase the history that produced them.Sara looked directly into his eyesI nothing else, you need to remember that. you can't erase history, or change it. it would be like destroying yourself.
Haruki Murakami
The person whom you really, really love may not be here anymore. And you might be feeling lonely, but, there are people in this world who really, really love you, so shouldn't that equal it all out? So, please don't ever think that you're alone. I'll be watching over you. I'll always be watching over you. I promise to always watch over you. You're not alone.
Yuuki Obata
I'll tell you right now, a ghoul's hunger is true hell.
Sui Ishida
There are all kinds of things we have to deal with in life,' Eri finally said. 'And one thing always seems to connect with another. You try to solve one problem, only to find that another one you hadn't anticipated arises instead. It's not that easy to get free of them. That's true for you - and for me, too.
Haruki Murakami
I’m free, I think. I shut my eyes and think hard and deep about how free I am, but I can’t really understand what it means. All I know is I’m totally alone. All alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who’s lost his compass and his map. Is this what it means to be free?
Haruki Murakami
These days only a guerrilla or a box man would want to cover up his identity to the extent of refusing the convenience of instalment buying. But I am that box man. A representative of anti-instalmentism.
Kōbō Abe
I took the life of the woman I was supposed to call mother in the process of being born... in order to become the world's strongest shinobi... an incarnation of sand was implanted inside of me...
Masashi Kishimoto
The memory of having sat at someone’s feet will later make you want to trample him underfoot. I’m trying to fend off your admiration for me, you see, in order to save myself from your future contempt. I prefer to put up with my present state of loneliness rather than suffer more loneliness later. We who are born into this age of freedom and independence and the self must undergo this loneliness. It’s the price we pay for these times of ours.
Sōseki Natsume
the mind is strong. It survives, even without thought. Even with everything taken away, it holds a seed--your self. You must believe in your own powers.
Haruki Murakami
Then when I saw Pain attack Hinata, I was so mad, so full of rage, I let the Nine-Tails take over without even thinking about it.
Masashi Kishimoto
The world pushes us with no mercy and when some push back the world points and cries EVIL
Mewtwo
Reality is complicated. There is no justification for all of the hasty conclusions.
Hideki Yukawa
Destiny isn't something you make as you're told. By overcoming difficulties, life and this whole world can advance forward. That's what destiny is for. A world that has lost the power to advance forward, will be destroyed - Aladdin
Shinobu Ohtaka
Everything in this world exists to wear you down.
Tite Kubo
Love can rebuild the world, they say, so everything's possible when it comes to love.
Haruki Murakami
Besides being the world the kind of sadness that can not be expressed in tears. You can not explain it to anyone. Unable to take any shape, settles quietly in the bottom of the heart as snow during the windless night.
Haruki Murakami
The dead can survive as part of the lives of those that still live.
Kenzaburō Ōe
There was something odd for him about not feeling lonely. The very fact that he had ceased to be lonely caused him to fear the possibility of becoming lonely again.
Haruki Murakami
...in the distance across the dark fields I saw a flame. With the rainy season, the fireflies had long since disappeared. What then could this be? The flame flickered, now brightly, no dimly, and sometimes it glowed like a halo, as if it had sunk deep into water.I was frightened by this flame. For in my heart I, too, carried a flame.
Shōhei Ōoka
If to be truthful is to be cruel, then lying must surely be an act of kindness. And so, kindness is a lie.
Hikigaya Hachiman
Everybody has to start somewhere. You have your whole future ahead of you. Perfection doesn't happen right away.
Haruki Murakami
You sit at the edge of the world,I am in a crater that's no more.Words without lettersStanding in the shadow of the door.The moon shines down on a sleeping lizard,Little fish rain from the sky.Outside the window there are soldiers,steeling themselves to die.(Refrain)Kafka sits in a chair by the shore,Thinking for the pendulum that moves the world, it seems.When your heart is closed,The shadow of the unmoving Sphinx,Becomes a knife that pierces your dreams.The drowning girl's fingersSearch for the entrance stone, and more.Lifting the hem of her azure dress,She gazes --at Kafka on the shore
Haruki Murakami
You know what I should do?" Hoshino asked excited. "Of course," the cat said. "What'd I tell you? Cats know everything. Not like dogs.
Haruki Murakami