Quotes by Japanese Authors - Page 6

A low possibility means it's not zero. - Tokuchi Toua
Kaitani Shinobu
Reality is created out of confusion and contradiction, and if you exclude those elements, you're no longer talking about reality. You might think that --by following language and a logic that appears consistent-- you're able to exclude that aspect of reality, but it will always be lying in wait for you, ready to take its revenge.
Haruki Murakami
If all the people break, and all the world breaks, and everyone and everything goes mad, then I can be normal, just like everyone else, right?
Jun Mochizuki
Those were strange days, now that I look back at them. In the midst of life, everything revolved around death.
Haruki Murakami
Fate is but a dying wish... Of a world that is beyond control. Like a single lotus flower, the future blossoms; Upon its petals, two people shall be free.
Youka Nitta
It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something you can do it up to a point. If you really work at being happy you can do it up to a point. But anything more than that you can't. Anything more than that is luck.
Haruki Murakami
Strange combination, isn't it--gratitude and resentment? But this is the way I think. Actually, I think everybody thinks that way. Even the children of the humans who died long ago, I think they lived their lives holding similar contradictory thoughts about their parents. They were raised to learn about love and death, and they lived out their lives passing from the sunny spots to the shady spots of this world.
Otsuichi
What was Dr. Mera's motive for murder? I don't need to tell that to a writer of detective novels such as yourself. You know well enough yourself that even without a motive, a murderer lives to kill.
Rampo Edogawa
The moment he laid eyes on Kuga, I knew. There's a reason I'm doing this to him. I want to see it; how he's fallen in love with a guy, and how he makes him his own. And then what I've done will become a sharp knife, thrown right back at me.That's right. I just wanted to see.And the meaning behind the sharp knife flying towards me: Why not me? Why can't it be me? All this time, I would be lying if I said I've never wished for it, but by being merely an observer, I've somehow managed to distance myself.Kuga is a bright light, like the sun. I, on the other hand... (Yashiro)
Kou Yoneda
Reading is a dialog with oneself; it is self-reflection, which cultivates profound humanity. Reading is therefore essential to our development. It expands and enriches the personality like a seed that germinates after a long time and sends forth many blossom-laden branches.People who can say of a book, 'this changed my life' truly understand the meaning of happiness. Reading that sparks inner revolution is desperately needed to escape drowning in the rapidly advancing information society. Reading is more than intellectual ornamentation; it is a battle for the establishment for the self, a ceaseless challenge that keeps us young and vigorous.
Daisaku Ikeda
For the time beingWords scatterAre they fallen leaves?
Ruth Ozeki
The pain of being treated like a mere object. And a sense that this pain would turn into pleasure.
Natsuo Kirino
What I want is for the two of us to meet somewhere by chance one day, like, passing on the street, or getting on the same bus.
Haruki Murakami
What isn't remembered never happened.Memory is merely a record...you just need to rewrite that record.
Yoshitoshi ABe
It's interesting, isn't it? Being in the world.
Eiji Yoshikawa
When I die, I wonder what will happen to me. Is there some place like heaven, and will I be able to meet you there someday? I don't know. There's no way to know. No one knows what comes after death. But at the very least, we won't be able to talk until then.There's a wide, deep and fast running river between the living and the dead. Once you cross that river, no matter what happens, you're never coming back. It's a one way trip.
Ao Jyumonji
When my own time comes, will I too long for the sea? I think I will be content enough with the soil. And I will not demand the exact spot, but let it be within this country Horace and I have spent the years roaming contentedly.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Even if things don't unfold the way you expected, don't be disheartened or give up. One who continues to advance will win in the end.
Daisaku Ikeda
The night is darkest just before dawn. But keep your eyes open; if you avert your eyes from the dark, you'll be blind to the rays of a new day...So keep your eyes open, no matter how dark the night ahead may be.
Hideaki Sorachi
The longer we live, the more weight we carry in our hearts.
Ai Yazawa
Holding this soft, small living creature in my lap this way, though, and seeing how it slept with complete trust in me, I felt a warm rush in my chest. I put my hand on the cat's chest and felt his heart beating. The pulse was faint and fast, but his heart, like mine, was ticking off the time allotted to his small body with all the restless earnestness of my own.
Haruki Murakami
There's not a branch of publishing or broadcasting that doesn't depend in some way on advertising. It'd be like an aquarium without water. Why, ninety-five percent of the information that reaches you has already been preselected and paid for.
Haruki Murakami
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
before the gate --my walking stick's made a riverof melting snow
Kobayashi Issa
We do not know if she collapsed because of overwhelming joy, extreme surprise, grave disappointment, or heavy anxiety that for the next months and years she would live with a human male, because in fact she had been honest when she told her girlfriends that she had given up on men, OR NONE OF THE ABOVE.
Kyoko Yoshida
Miki-san... do you truly want that person's dream to come true? Or is it that you want to be that person's savior for making that dream come true? If you're going to fulfill someone else's dream, that's the time when it's most important to be sure you know your own wish. The two might seem the same, but they're entirely different.
Magica Quartet
Justice will prevail!
Tsugumi Ohba
Tokyo is bigger than Kumamoto. And Japan is bigger than Tokyo. And even bigger than Japan... Even bigger than Japan is the inside of your head. Don't ever surrender yourself ― not to Japan, not to anything. You may think that what you're doing is for the sake of the nation, but let something take possession of you like that, and all you do is bring it down.
Sōseki Natsume
I may be someone who was always destined to spend my life wandering aimlessly. I can’t settle down. The cruel part is, I want to settle down and the world won’t let me. So what choice do I have but to become a fugitive?
Sōseki Natsume
You couldn't save your mom because you weren't strong enough to do so. As for me, I couldn't stand and face the titan because I simply didn't have the courage! Forgive me... Forgive me.
Hajime Isayama
In my school, no consideration is given to anything unreasonable; the heart of the matter is to use the power of the knowledge of martial arts to gain victory any way you can.
Miyamoto Musashi
The bond between husband and wife is a strong one. Suppose the man had hunted her out and brought her back. The memory of her acts would still be there, and inevitably, sooner or later, it would be cause for rancor. When there are crises, incidents, a woman should try to overlook them, for better or for worse, and make the bond into something durable. The wounds will remain, with the woman and with the man, when there are crises such as I have described. It is very foolish for a woman to let a little dalliance upset her so much that she shows her resentment openly. He has his adventures--but if he has fond memories of their early days together, his and hers, she may be sure that she matters. A commotion means the end of everything. She should be quiet and generous, and when something comes up that quite properly arouses her resentment she should make it known by delicate hints. The man will feel guilty and with tactful guidance he will mend his ways. Too much lenience can make a woman seem charmingly docile and trusting, but it can also make her seem somewhat wanting in substance. We have had instances enough of boats abandoned to the winds and waves.It may be difficult when someone you are especially fond of, someone beautiful and charming, has been guilty of an indiscretion, but magnanimity produces wonders. They may not always work, but generosity and reasonableness and patience do on the whole seem best.
Murasaki Shikibu
I swear that I will never cause trouble for anybody, as long as I live!! So please! Nobody cause any trouble for me, either!!
Minoru Furuya
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
Now she realized that she was not peering at a so-dark-blue-it-looked-black ocean, but rather she was looking straight through miles of incredibly clear water at something enormous and black in its nethermost depths. Maybe it was the bottom--so deep that not even light could touch it.And yet, down in those impossible depths, she thought she could see tiny lights sparkling. She stared uncertainly at the tiny glimmerings. They seemed almost like scattered grains of sand lit from within; in some places they clustered like colonies, faint and twinkling.Like stars...
Fuyumi Ono
Too lazy to be ambitious,I let the world take care of itself.Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?Listening to the night rain on my roof,I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.
Ryōkan
A faint tear wet Meiko's eye, so slight a bit of moisture that it passed unseen by Yasuko. Yet all the anguish of which she never spoke was compressed into that single drop
Fumiko Enchi
It may well be that we can never fully adapt to our own deformities. Unable tofind a place inside ourselves for the very real pain and suffering that these deformities cause, we come here to get away from such things. As long as we are here, we can get by without hurting others or being hurt by them because we know that we are "deformed". That's whatdistinguishes us from the outside world: most people go about their lives unconscious of their deformities, while in this little world of ours the deformities themselves are a precondition. Just as Indians wearfeathers on their heads to show what tribe they belong to, we wear our deformities in the open. And we live quietly so as not to hurt one another.
Haruki Murakami
Literacy is inseparable from opportunity, and opportunity is inseperable from freedom. The freedom promised by literacy is both freedom from - from ignorance, oppression, poverty - and freedom to - to do new things, to make choices, to learn.
Koichiro Matsuura
Once a person has been poisoned by self-deception, he can't make decisions about himself as neatly as all that.
Kenzaburō Ōe
In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion,'" she repeats, making sure of it. If she had paper and pencil, it wouldn't surprise me if she wrote it down. "So what does that really mean? In simple terms." I think it over. It takes me a while to gather my thoughts, but she waits patiently. "I think it means," I say, "that chance encounters are what keep us going. In simple terms.
Haruki Murakami
I have no conscience at all -- least of all an artistic conscience. All I have is nerves.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
You can hide memories, suppress them, but you can’t erase the history that produced them
Haruki Murakami
From a human point of view, out bodily existence is a fairytale. At any rate, to the inhabitants of the human world, 'heaven' and 'the next world' are both nothing but fables.
CLAMP
And again, the dark street. The dark, dark street. The women out shopping for the evening meal of course, and baby carriage and the silver bicycle were already painted out by the darkness; most of the commuters too were already in place in their filing-drawer houses. A half-forsaken chasm of time ....
Kōbō Abe
My mind was not that of a conqueror, but that of a cow that spends its life chewing contentedly in the meadow of invoices, waiting for the train of eternal grace to pass by. How good it felt to exist without pride of ambition. To live in hibernation.
Amélie Nothomb
The world is always full of the sound of waves.The little fishes, abandoning themselves to the waves, dance and sing, and play, but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it depth?
Eiji Yoshikawa
These feelings...the ugly feelings in my heart...should have been blown away...and buried deep in the sands...
Rei Tōma
I was afraid to go into a restaurant because I was intimidated by the waiters furtively hovering behind me waiting for my plate to be emptied. Most of all I dreaded paying a bill-my awkwardness when I handed over the money after buying something did not arise from my stinginess, but from excessive tension, excessive embarrassment, excessive uneasiness and apprehension.
Osamu Dazai
it is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings.
Daisaku Ikeda
I'm safe inside this container called me.
Haruki Murakami
Morino: What does the kidnapper do with those things?Yuka: Those things?Morino: You know, the stinky things with four legs that make a lot of
Otsuichi
Approach a great painting as thou wouldst approach a great prince.
Kakuzō Okakura
What are we artists for? We are for showing you what you've wandered for to find the home of your spirit...
Hiroko Sakai
Behind the depressing silence of the sea, the silence of God …. the feeling that while men raise their voices in anguish God remains with folded arms, silent.
Shūsaku Endō
Okay, let’s put it this way. I would like to sleep with you. But it’s alright if I don’t sleep with you. What I’m saying is I’d like to be as fair as possible. I don’t want to force anything on anybody, any more than I’d want anything forced on me. It’s enough that I feel your presence or see your commas swirling around me.
Haruki Murakami
On the Death of his ChildDew Evaporates And all our world is dew...so dear, So fresh, so fleeting
Kobayashi Issa
I can't imagine a life without a story.
Banana Yoshimoto
Our faces were no more than ten inches apart, but she was light years away from me.
Haruki Murakami
What i'm trying to say is this. A certain kind of shittiness, a certain kind of stagnation, a certain kind of darkness, goes on propogating itself by its own power in its own self-contained cycle. And once it passes a certain point, no one can stop it - even if the person himself wants to stop it.
Haruki Murakami