Quotes by Japanese Authors - Page 27

But you play that passage like it's the -memory- of love. You're so young, yet you know desertion, abandonment. That's why you play that third movement the way you do. Most cellists, they play it with joy. But for you, it's not about joy, it's about the memory of a joyful time that's gone for ever.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily coloured by the circumstances in which one remembers, and no doubt this applies to certain of the recollections I have gathered here. 
Kazuo Ishiguro
Precipitate as weather, she appeared from somewhere then evaporated, leaving only memory.
Haruki Murakami
More fundamentally, I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.
Kazuo Ishiguro
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
Robbing people of their actual history is the same as robbing them of part of themselves. It’s a crime."Fuka-Eri thought about that for a moment.Tengo went on, “Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us - is rewritten - we lose the ability to sustain our true selves.
Haruki Murakami
I have a pretty good memory, but memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.
Ruth Ozeki
This country awakens so many memories, though each seems like some restless sparrow I know will flee any moment into the breeze.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Two years of oblivion have reduced me, if not to emptiness, than to something that sits closely beside it. It laid waste all that I was inside, and severed what connection existed between my memory and personality through two years of “living” like a shell, on the boundary of emptiness. And though there was precious little drama here compared to actual societal rejection, it drives me to worry all the same. All my memories are just reflections on the water, and I don’t know whether I’m the reflection or the real thing.
Kinoko Nasu
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
In years past, a person died, and eventually all those with memories of him or her also died, bringing about the complete erasure of that person's existence. Just as the human body returned to dust, mingling with atoms of the natural world, a person's existence would return to nothingness.How very clean.Now, as if in belated punishment for the invention of writing, any message once posted on the Internet was immortal. Words as numerous as the dust of the earth would linger forever in their millions and trillions and quadrillions and beyond.
Minae Mizumura
Memory works in different ways for everybody. Different capacities, different directions, too. Sometimes memory helps you think, sometimes it impedes. Doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. Probably means it’s no big deal.
Haruki Murakami
Reiko had not kept a diary and was now denied the pleasure of assiduously rereading her record of the happiness of the past few months and consigning each page to the fire as she did so.- Death in Midsummer and Other Stories
Yukio Mishima
I think memory is the most important asset of human beings. It’s a kind of fuel; it burns and it warms you. My memory is like a chest: There are so many drawers in that chest, and when I want to be a fifteen-year-old boy, I open up a certain drawer and I find the scenery I saw when I was a boy in Kobe. I can smell the air, and I can touch the ground, and I can see the green of the trees. That’s why I want to write a book.
Haruki Murakami
What isn't remembered never happened.Memory is merely a record...you just need to rewrite that record.
Yoshitoshi ABe
What he wanted was not just to hear about Hailsham, but to remember Hailsham, just like it had been his own childhood. He knew he was close to completing and so that's what he was doing: getting me to describe things to him, so they'd really sink in, so that maybe during those sleepless nights, with the drugs and the paint and the exhaustion, the line would blur between what were my memories and what were his.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Precipitate as weather, she appeared from somewhere, then evaporated, leaving only memory.
Haruki Murakami
Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.
Kazuo Ishiguro
I am you, Umasi, and I am weak." the shadow spun around and began walking away. "In the end, either you will conquer me…or I will conquer you.
Isamu Fukui
Well, finally, once you become an orphan, you're an orphan till the day you die. I keep having the same dream. I'm seven years old and an orphan again. All alone, with no adults around to take care of me. It's evening, and the light is fading, and night is pressing in. It's always the same. In the dream I always go back to being seven years old. Software like that you can't exchange once it's contaminated.
Haruki Murakami
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
The third dream was hard to put into words. It was a rambling, incoherent dream without any setting. All that was there was a feeling of being in motion. Aomame was ceaselessly moving through time and space It didn't matter when or where this was All that mattered was this movement. Everything was fluid, and a specific meaning was born of that fluidity. But as she gave herself up to it, she found her body growing transparent. She could see through her hands to the other side. Her bones, organs, and womb became visible. At this rate she might very well no longer exist. After she could no longer see herself, Aomame wondered what could possibly come then. She had no answer.
Haruki Murakami
Writing a novel is like having a dream.
Haruki Murakami
I don't dream. Come to think of it, i haven't had any dreams in a long time.
Haruki Murakami
She tried to think about what lay ahead, but soon gave up. 'Words turn into stone,' Nimit had told her. She settled deep into her seat and closed her eyes. All at once the image came to her of the sky she had seen while swimming on her back. And Erroll Garner's 'I'll Remember April.' Let me sleep, she thought. Just let me sleep. And wait for the dream to come.
Haruki Murakami
Who cares what we dream about? Just getting through each day is hard enough.
Inio Asano
This life is nothing but a short, painful dream.
Haruki Murakami
That’s my dream. It’s always the same. Always. Every little detail. And every time I have it, it’s just as scary as the last.(…)It’s so real, I feel as if I’ve already died hundreds of times.
Haruki Murakami
What's the difference in wanting someone you don't like to vanish and dreaming about a world in which they don't exist? They're just two ways of saying the same thing.
Fuyumi Ono
Unsure how to answer, I took another grape. Time was no problem for me, but I wasn't eager to hear the long life story of a dwarf. And besides, this was a dream. It could evaporate any moment.
Haruki Murakami
If you want to reach the non-everyday, you’ll either have to move somewhere else or get into more “underground” things. But once you step into that world, it’ll only take about three days for that to seem normal, too. If you truly want to continue escaping from everyday life, you’ve no other choice but to keep evolving. No matter whether you’re aiming higher or lower. Enjoy each day for what it is
Ryohgo Narita
Why did this disease choose me? I cannot carry it, if its just for the word: Fate.
Aya Kito
Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain, but at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon.
Ikkyu
Rule #3 - It's okay to believe yourself better than the rest of the planet, so long as you keep it to yourself.
Bisco Hatori
Doing or not doing something - they are similar. Both involve an action and sincerity.
CLAMP
I have always believed that atrademark is the life of an enterpriseand that it must be protected boldly. Atrademark and a company name arenot just clever gimmicks-they carryresponsibility and guarantee thequality of the product. If someone triesto get a free ride on the reputation andthe ability of another who has workedto build up public trust, it is nothingshort of thievery. We were not flatteredby this theft of our name.
Akio Morita
The key to success for Sony, and to everything in business, science and technology for that matter, is never to follow the others.
Masaru Ibuka
Japanese universities have a chair system that is a fixed hierarchy. This has its merits when trying to work as a laboratory on one theme. But if you want to do original work you must start young, and young people are limited by the chair system. Even if students cannot become assistant professors at an early age they should be encouraged to do original work....Industry is more likely to put its research effort into its daily business. It is very difficult for it to become involved in pure chemistry. There is a need to encourage long-range research, even if we don't know its goal and if its application is unknown.
Kenichi Fukui
I have always believed that a trademark is the life of an enterprise and that it must be protected boldly. A trademark and a company name arenot just clever gimmicks-they carry responsibility and guarantee the quality of the product. If someone tries to get a free ride on the reputation and the ability of another who has worked to build up public trust, it is nothing short of thievery. We were not flattered by this theft of our name.
Akio Morita
I don't know how to do it today, but I will know how to do it tomorrow and do it.
Shu Hattori
If you are going to complain, blame, or criticize, then do something about it... Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.
Shu Hattori
Show your vulnerability, but have faith. You will succeed. Growth is not glamorous.
Shu Hattori
That Seigo could go into geisha houses, accept luncheon invitations, drop in at the Club, see people off at Shimabashi, meet them at Yokohama, run out to Oiso to humor the elders—that he could put in his appearance at large gatherings from morning to evening without seeming either triumphant or dejected—this must be because he was thoroughly accustomed to this kind of life, thought Daisuke; it was probably like the jellyfish's floating in the sea and not finding it salty.
Sōseki Natsume
Oba-sans, to put it in somewhat difficult terms, are life-forms that have stopped evolving. And anyone can turn into an Oba-san. Young women, of course, but even young men, even middle-aged men —even children. You turn into an Oba-san the instant you lose the will to evolve.
Ryū Murakami
Victory is in our hands! It's time for our legends to begin! Don't tremble, and don't you dare cry! Come on, show some energy!
Nobuyuki Fukumoto
For a ten-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl to become good friends was not easy under any circumstances. Indeed, it might be one of the most difficult accomplishments in the world.
Haruki Murakami
The first time Enokizu met me, the first words he said were: "You look like an ape."When someone is that outrageously rude, it's hard to be angry.
Natsuhiko Kyogoku
And you came to Finland to build a station?""No I came here on vacation to visit a friend.""That's good," the driver said. "Vacations and friends are the two best things in life.
Haruki Murakami
New Year’s cards from friends — colored patterns of my life
Mitsu Suzuki
You're a bad man who made her pound a shot of Jäger.
Yuhta Nishio
I'll try to see you as just a friend, but it's gonna take a while. So please be patient, okay? Let me be in love with you for just a little longer.
Hisaya Nakajo
Ordinary imperfect people, always choose similarly imperfect people as friends.
Haruki Murakami
Fai: *punches Kurogane* That was payback, Kuro-sama!Kurogane: *grins* You're gonna get punched out, you creep!
CLAMP
Are we friends? or are we foes? ... That kind of thing... You decide... For yourselves!!!
Eiichirō Oda
My Heart is Bounding! I can fly anywhere as long as I'm with the Nakama I Love!!!"~Leevy
Hiro Mashima
They say that only very good friends quarrel. But at the end of the day a quarrel is a fight between two people’s egos. Since people cannot understand each other by just being honest. May be its impossible to live your whole life without getting hurt but don’t hurt the people close to you.
Ai Yazawa
In the city fields Contemplating cherry-trees...Strangers are like friends
Kobayashi Issa
If we have received a precious gift from God, it is our imagination. When we tap into our powers of imagination, we are bombs of possibilities.
Hiroko Sakai
The root of all fear is imagination.
Atsushi Ohkubo
You’re afraid of imagination. And even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the responsibility that begins in dreams. But you have to sleep, and dreams are a part of sleep. When you’re awake you can suppress imagination. But you can’t suppress dreams.
Haruki Murakami