Quotes by Japanese Authors - Page 10

Maybe you didn't want to get married, or get tied down?'Tsukuru shook his head. 'No, I don't think that was it. I'm the sort of person who craves stability.
Haruki Murakami
Rather than ask yourself if you are correct, it is far more realistic to think about how you are mistaken. Most humans have not been designed to be right very often.
Kouhei Kadono
Architecture (is) a theatre stage setting where the leading actors are the people and to dramatically direct the dialogue between these people and space is the technique of designing.
Kisho Kurokawa
Now for a good twelve-hour sleep, I told myself. Twelve solid hours. Let birds sing, let people go to work. Somewhere out there, a volcano might blow, Israeli commandos might decimate a Palestinian village. I couldn't stop it. I was going to sleep.
Haruki Murakami
One dies only if he's not anymore in the hearts and minds of those who know him. - Monkey D. Luffy
Eiichirō Oda
Spending plenty of time on something can be the most sophisticated form of revenge.
Haruki Murakami
That’s how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.
Haruki Murakami
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
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
So without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, to express yourself freely as you are is the most important thing to make yourself happy, and to make others happy... So we should be concentrated with our full mind and body on what we do; and we should be faithful, subjectively and objectively, to ourselves, and especially to our feelings... it is better to express how you feel without any particular attachment or intention.
Shunryu Suzuki
In this world of dreams, drifting off still more; and once again speaking and dreaming of dreams. Just let it be.
Ryōkan
Depending on each other and facing the difficulties that go with it takes a lot more effort than living on your own, separated from the rest of the world. Loving each other, hurting each other, over and over, until our death. All those things that seem so normal are actually incredibly difficult. To accomplish a normal life might be an achievement as great as writing a book that goes down in history!
Naoyuki Ochiai
When was it I realized that, on this truly dark and solitary path we all walk, the only way we can light is our own? Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely.Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.
Banana Yoshimoto
Believe in yourself and the world will follow suit.
Tadahiko Nagao
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-centered, 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
You must remain. I must depart.Two autumns falling in the heart.
Buson
Ships passing in broad daylight.
Haruki Murakami
He was beneath the waves, a creature crawling the ocean bottom.
Doppo Kunikida
The better you were able to imagine what you wanted to imagine, the farther you could flee from reality.
Haruki Murakami
Writing from memory like this, I often feel a pang of dread. What if I've forgotten the most important thing? What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all the the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning into mud?
Haruki Murakami
The foods that are nearby are best for human beings, and things that he has to struggle to obtain turn out to be the least beneficial of all.
Fukuoka
Transported to a different culture, thought often loses its subtlety and can even rampage like a wild beast.
Minae Mizumura
You mustn't force images on things.Only gods were what you should expect perfection from.You mustn't demand an ideal from anyone.That is weakness. It is an evil that must be hated. It is negligence that must be punished. It spoils not only yourself, but those around you.You are allowed to be disappointed with only yourself. You should hurt only yourself. Hate yourself for not following your ideal.The only one you must not forgive is yourself.
Wataru Watari
Society conspires against her from early infancy. Her brain is steadily filled with plaster until it sets: ‘If you’re not married by the time you’re twenty-five, you’ll have good reason to be ashamed’; ‘if you laugh, you won’t look dignified’ ; ‘if your face betrays your feelings, you’ll look coarse’; ‘if you mention the existence of a single body hair, you’re repulsive’ ; ‘if a boy kisses you on the cheek in public, you’re a whore’; if you enjoy eating, you’re a pig’; ‘if you take pleasure in sleeping, you’re no better than a cow’; and so on.These precepts would be merely anecdotal if they weren’t taken so much to heart.
Amélie Nothomb
On the Brevity of Our TiesTies in this world last only for a time. We are husband and wife, parent and child, for a short period only. Once this reality sinks in, we cannot help treasuring each moment of our brief association.
Kentetsu Takamori
Think! There's nothing certain in our future! All we can hope for is a vague continuation. But in spite of that, you're going to keep on living. You can't give up on life just because it's vague. It's a question of possibilities...
Kōji Suzuki
People SHOULD be doubted. Many people misunderstand this concept. Doubting people is just a part of getting to know them. What many people call ‘trust’ is really just giving up on trying to understand others, and that very act is far worse than doubting. It is actually ‘apathy.
Shinobu Kaitani
Most of the psychological differences between men and women seem to come from differences in their reproductive system
Haruki Murakami
Bushido is realized in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other reasoning.
Tsunetomo Yamamoto
A child isn’t born bitter. I point no fingers as to who tainted the clean, pure pool of my childhood. Let’s just say that when I realized that I didn’t want to grow up, the damage was already done. Knowing that being grown up was no swell place to be means that you are grown up enough to notice. And you can’t go back from there. You have to forge another route, draw your own map.
Hiromi Goto
It was that kind of kiss. But as with all kisses, it was not without a certain element of danger
Haruki Murakami
Being alive is sign of strength!
Hiro Mashima
Everyone is alone. Everyone is empty. People no longer have need of others. You can always find a spare for any talent. Any relationship can be replaced. I had gotten bored of a world like that. But for some reason... The thought that someone other than you might kill me never occurred to me. (Makishima Shogo)
Urobuchi Gen
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
I have no conscience at all -- least of all an artistic conscience. All I have is nerves.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Is someone different at age 18 or 60? I believe one stays the same.
Hayao Miyazaki
One other thing I learned from working in a company was that the majority of people in the world have no problem following orders. They're actually happy to be told what to do. They might complain, but that's not how they really feel. They just grumble out of habit. If you told them to think for themselves, and make their own decisions and take responsibility for them, they'd be clueless.
Haruki Murakami
Well, the death of the body is the flight of the arrow. It's makin' a straight line for the brain. No dodgin' it not for anyone. People have't die, the body has't fall. Time is hurlin' that arrow forward. And yet, like I was sayin' thought goes on subdividin' that time for ever and ever. The paradox becomes real. The arrow never hits.In other words, immortality.
Haruki Murakami
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
When you find yourself looking ridiculous, reasoning isn't worth a damn.
Osamu Dazai
It was his knowledge of his own willful stupidity that had brought on his irritation
Keigo Higashino
8. The Cat Who Lived in the PalaceThe cat who lived in the Palace had been awarded the head-dress of nobility and was called Lady Myobu.
Sei Shōnagon
You like to write. It's the single most important quality for someone who wants to be a writer. But not in itself enough.
Haruki Murakami
Everybody gets hurt. Sometimes a big hurt, sometimes a little hurt. But the person who's suffered a lot isn't especially strong. And the person who's been hurt a little isn't especially weak. What's important is being able to get over it.
Sakura Tsukuba
There are symbolic dreams-dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities-realities that symbolize a dream
Haruki Murakami
Once you've recognized your own limits, you've raised yourself to a higher level of being, since you're closer to the real you...
Banana Yoshimoto
I wished my heart would break and get it over with.
Banana Yoshimoto
She was quit a handsome man, my sister.
Wataru Watari
Again, there were maidens who cherished the firm belief that he had come from the sea. Because within his breast could be heard the roaring of the sea. Because in the pupils of his eyes there lingered the mysterious and eternal horizon that the sea leaves as a keepsake deep in the eyes of all who are born at the seaside and forced to depart from it. Because his signs were sultry like the tidal breezes of full summer, fragrant with the smell of seaweed cast upon the shore.
Yukio Mishima
O snailClimb Mount FujiBut slowly, slowly!
Kobayashi Issa
Everything in life has some good in it. And when something awful happens, the goodness stands out even more--it's sad, but that's the truth.
Banana Yoshimoto
If you think of someone's good qualities as the umeboshi in an onigiri it's as if their qualities are stuck to their back! Maybe the reason people get jealous of each other is because they can see so clearly the umeboshi on other people's backs.
Natsuki Takaya
Then you are a poet?' she asked, fingering the flyer in her pocket.'No not at all,' he waved his hand. 'I am merely a character in a poem.
Karen Tei Yamashita
My body is tired as worn out rug, but my brain (if i had) is always full of curiosity, jumping around for seeking new funs. If they could learn how to be cooperative each others, my life could be way easier... sigh*
Hiroko Sakai
I do feel that I’ve managed to make something I could maybe call my world…over time…little by little. And when I’m inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I’m a weak person, that I bruise easily, don’t you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It’s like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere.
Haruki Murakami
What i'm saying is that the sun always rises. Fortune's a mix of good and bad luck. Like they say/ good luck and bad luck are strands of the same rope.
Sakura Tsukuba
The world’s crawling with stupid, innocent girls, and I’m just one of them, self-consciously chasing after dreams that will never come true.
Haruki Murakami
I suddenly thought about my old girlfriend, the one I had first slept with in my third year of high school. Chills ran through me as I realized how badly I had treated her. I had hardly ever thought about her thoughts or feelings or the pain I had caused her. She was such a sweet and gentle thing, but at the time I had taken her sweetness for granted and later hardly gave her a second thought. What was she doing now? I wondered. And had she forgiven me?
Haruki Murakami
These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage.
R.H. Blyth
These young men, in other words, represented a variety of types, but one thing they had in common was that they'd all given up on committing positively to anything in life. This was not their fault, however. The blame lay with a certain ubiquitous spirit of the times, transmitted to them by their respective mothers. And perhaps it goes without saying that this "spirit of the times" was in fact an oppressive value system based primarily upon the absolute certainty that nothing in this world was ever going to change.
Ryū Murakami