Quotes by Japanese Authors - Page 7

My role in all of this is very simple. I make clothing like armor. My clothing protects you from unwelcome eyes.
Yohji Yamamoto
I don't think avoiding conflict is not caring.~Shin
Ai Yazawa
I am anti-social and have a dark personality. I have no redeeming qualties and nothing to offer, therefore I could never have what I wanted
Novala Takemoto
Aomame raised her glass to the moon and asked, “Have you gone to bed with someone in your arms lately?” The moon did not answer. “Do you have any friends?” she asked. The moon did not answer. “Don’t you get tired of always playing it cool?” The moon did not answer.
Haruki Murakami
I kept staring at the moon. I'm not sure if its light was good or evil. I thought it might not be either. The moon just shines with the light of chaos. Mysteriously. Brightly. That must not be either good or evil. Just as the rules of this world are not all good.
Fuminori Nakamura
Even when the moon shrinks and disappears, it shows itself again gradually. When ancient people saw that eternal cycle of death and recovery, they prayed to the moon for their own rebirth. Rebirth. Will I be reborn? ... If I were reborn, what would I become?
Fuminori Nakamura
Anyhow, I took every stitch of clothing off and got out of bed. And I got down on my knees on the floor in the white moonlight. The heat was off and the room must have been cold, but I didn’t feel cold. There was some kind of special something in the moonlight and it was wrapping my body in a thin, skintight film. At least that’s how I felt. I just stayed there naked for a while, spacing out, but then I took turns holding different parts of my body out to be bathed in the moonlight. I don’t know, it just seemed like the most natural thing to do. The moonlight was so absolutely, incredibly beautiful that I couldn’t not do it. My head and shoulders and arms and breasts and tummy and bottom and, you know, around there: one after another, I dipped them in the moonlight, like taking a bath.
Haruki Murakami
The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring - and all of the acts carried out - on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories. All it did was embrace the heavy past with a cool, measured detachment. On the moon there was neither air nor wind. Its vacuum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed. No one could unlock the heart of the moon. Aomame raised her glass to the moon and asked, “Have you gone to bed with someone in your arms lately?” The moon did not answer. “Do you have any friends?” she asked. The moon did not answer. “Don’t you get tired of always playing it cool?”The moon did not answer.
Haruki Murakami
Many solemn nights Blond moon, we stand and marvel...Sleeping our noons away
Bashō Matsuo
There was just one moon. That familiar, yellow, solitary moon. The same moon that silently floated over fields of pampas grass, the moon that rose--a gleaming, round saucer--over the calm surface of lakes, that tranquilly beamed down on the rooftops of fast-asleep houses. The same moon that brought the high tide to shore, that softly shone on the fur of animals and enveloped and protected travelers at night. The moon that, as a crescent, shaved slivers from the soul--or, as a new moon, silently bathed the earth in its own loneliness. THAT moon.
Haruki Murakami
But even when the moon looks like it's waning...it's actually never changing shape. Don't ever forget that.
Ai Yazawa
I think that all women are witches, in the sense that a witch is a magical being. And a wizard, which is a male version of a witch, is kind of revered, and people respect wizards. But a witch, my god, we have to burn them. It’s the male chauvinistic society that we’re living in for the longest time, 3,000 years or whatever. And so I just wanted to point out the fact that men and women are magical beings. We are very blessed that way, so I’m just bringing that out. Don’t be scared of witches, because we are good witches, and you should appreciate our magical power.
Yoko Ono
Once in a while a story is spectacular enough to break through and attract media attention, but the swell quickly subsides into the general glut of bad news over which we, as citizens, have so little control.
Ruth Ozeki
At one time I was weary of verse writing, and wanted to give it up. At another time I was determined to be a poet until I could establish a proud name over others. The alternatives battled in my mind and made my life restless.
Bashō Matsuo
Miroku: Kagome, are you worrying about me?Kagome: I guess so.Miroku: In that case, I have a favor to ask of you: please bear my child.
Rumiko Takahashi
A child's growth is defined entirely by the adult that raises him.
Naoki Urasawa
There are apparently two hypotheses about jealousy: that it is a product of civilization and that it is a basic instinct of animals.
Kōbō Abe
Is it my imagination, or is there some kind of jealousy thing going on here?"-Inuyasha (gives Inuyasha a really bad look)"It's your imagination."-Sango (Inuyasha tries to hide behind Kagome) "Whatever you say."-Kagome
Rumiko Takahashi
Kyubey: ...Oh, geez. I never would have thought you capable of throwing your friend off a bridge. That wasn't a sane act, Madoka!
Magica Quartet
No, it didn't hurt. He didn't want to lose any black hair, and he was careful to pull out the white hairs one by one. But when he had finished, the skin was drawn and shriveled. It hurt when you ran your hand over it, the doctor said. It didn't bleed, but it was raw and red. Finally he was put in a mental hospital. . . He didn't want to be old, he wanted to be young again. No one seems to know whether he started pulling it out because he had lost his mind, or he lost his mind because he pulled out too much.
Yasunari Kawabata
Spirals.... this town is contaminated with spirals.
Junji Ito
I could feel a small polished stone sinking through the darkest waters of my heart. All those deep convoluted channels and passageways, and yet she managed to toss her pebble right down to the bottom of it all.
Haruki Murakami
The early autumn sun glinted on the water, an enormous mirror ground to powder and scattered.
Haruki Murakami
You are waterI’m waterwe’re all water in different containersthat’s why it’s so easy to meetsomeday we’ll evaporate together.
Yoko Ono
Listen to the beat of your soul~Soul Eater
Atsushi Ohkubo
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 dream, sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.
Haruki Murakami
Gay men! And it's incest! With the same face!
Bisco Hatori
But thats their image of us so we stay tense, holding our breath, hoping we wont be found out. - about being gay from the film Love My Life
Ebine Yamaji
That's a good point," Professor Hirota said. "But there is one thing we ought to keep in mind in the study of man. Namely, that a human being placed in particular circumstances has the ability and the right to do just the opposite of what the circumstances dictate. The trouble is, we have this odd habit of thinking that men and light both act according to mechanical laws, which leads to some stunning errors. We set things up to make a man angry, and he laughs. We try to make him laugh, and again he does the opposite, he gets angry. Either way, though, he's still a human being."Hirota had enlarged the scope of the problem again."Well, then, what you're saying is, no matter what a human being does in a particular set of circumstances, he is being natural," said the novelist at the far end of the table."That's it," Hirota shot back. "It seems to me that you might create any sort of character in a novel and there would be at least one person in the world just like him. We humans are simply incapable of imagining non-human actions or behavior. It's the writer's fault if we don't believe in his characters as human beings.
Sōseki Natsume
Fool! Nothing but black ink runs through my veins!
Hiromu Arakawa
To be strong and true had been the most important task he had set himself since early childhood.Once, as a boy, he had tried to outstare the sun. But before he could tell whether he had really looked at it or not, changes had occurred: the blazing red ball that had been there at first began to whirl, then suddenly dimmed, till it became a cold, bluish-black, flattened disk of iron. He felt he had seen the very essence of the sun.... For a while, wherever he looked he saw the sun's pale afterimage: in the undergrowth; in the shade beneath the trees; even, when he gazed up, in every part of the sky. The truth was something too dazzling to be looked at directly. And yet, once it had come into one's field of vision, one saw patches of light in all kinds of places: the afterimages of virtue.
Yukio Mishima
What we're fighting against isn't an out-and-out vice. It's an overgrown, perverted virtue.
Jared Taylor
I have no conscience at all -- least of all an artistic conscience. All I have is nerves.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
The whiff of ocean on the southern breeze and the smell of burning asphalt brought back memories of summers past. It had seemed as though those sweet dreams of summer would last forever: the warmth of a girl’s skin, an old rock ‘n’ roll song, freshly washed button-down shirt, the odor of cigarette smoke in a pool changing room, a fleeting premonition. Then one summer (when had it been?) the dreams had vanished, never to return.
Haruki Murakami
It's not like I'm all into nostalgia and history, it's just that I can't stand the way things are now
Novala Takemoto
I wonder what it felt to move to a country where you didn't grow up. I had thought about that often since my sister got married. Do you become a character in a story native to that land, or do you, somewhere in your heart, want to return to your homeland.
Banana Yoshimoto
No matter how fierce was the passion that gripped him, the fact is he was paralyzed, transfixed by the contemplation of his own past. Only something so momentous as to drive from his consciousness all thoughts of before and after could have propelled him forward. And with his eyes fixed on the past, he had no choice but to continue along its trajectory.
Sōseki Natsume
I'm your phantom dance partner. I'm your shadow. I'm not anything more.
Haruki Murakami
In response to my father-in-law's view, I offered no opinion. He was not looking for my opinion. He had merely been spouting his belief, a conviction that would remain unchanged for all eternity.
Haruki Murakami
Idiot.People say that those who call others idiots are the real idiots. I don't care if I'm an idiot, so I'll call you one. Idiot! You should have told me this earlier! Okay, he's dead! I'm gonna kill him for sure. He's totally dead, guaranteed! -ShizuoWell, no. I'm the Headless Rider! I'm totally fine. -CeltyNo, no, no. That's not even the problem here! If he pulled a blade on you, that's instant death. Gonna kill him...-ShizuoWhat about your job? Aren't you on a break right now? -CeltyI don't give a shit. -ShizuoCome on. I'm not going to let you get fired because of me. Besides, I still need more information to track him down. I'll make the preparations, so just wait for now. -CeltyFine. But try to make it quick. Gonna kill him...
Ryohgo Narita
I, who was empty… I made myself believe that I could only fill it.. by falling in love… at that time to me.. in this world around you, Nana... Everything was so shiny that I was blinded. That doesn’t mean that anyone would suit me… I just wanted to be in the same light as you.
Ai Yazawa
Everybody has own gifts from God. You just need to seize the right time, right place and right person to be found.
Hiroko Sakai
As I have said before, I had no illusions about my performing ability. But I did not know that my despair was brought about not because I had no talent but because I did not know how to develop it.
Shinichi Suzuki
Talent can be a nice thing to have sometimes. You look good, attract attention, and if you’re lucky, you make some money. Women flock to you. In that sense, having talent’s preferable to having none. But talent only functions when it’s supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus. All it takes is one screw in your brain to come loose and fall off, or some connection in your body to break down, and your concentration vanishes, like the dew at dawn.[…]If talent’s the foundation you rely on, and yet it’s so unreliable that you have no idea what’s going to happen to it the next minute, what meaning does it have?
Haruki Murakami
You can have tons of talent, but it won't necessarily keep you fed. If you have sharp instincts, through, you'll never go hungry.
Haruki Murakami
I know I have a pretty good sense for music, but she was better than me. I used to think it was such a waste! I thought, ‘If only she had started out with a good teacher and gotten the proper training, she’d be so much further along!’ But I was wrong about that. She was not the kind of child who could stand proper training. There just happen to be people like that. They’re blessed with this marvelous talent, but they can’t make the effort to systematize it. They end up squandering it in little bits and pieces. I’ve seen my share of people like that. At first you think they’re amazing. Like, they can sight-read some terrifically difficult piece and do a damn good job playing it all the way through. You see them do it, and you’re overwhelmed. you think, ‘I could never do that in a million years.’ But that’s as far as they go. They can’t take it any further. And why not? Because they won’t put in the effort. Because they haven’t had the discipline pounded into them. They’ve been spoiled. They have just enough talent so they’ve been able to play things well without any effort and they’ve had people telling them how great they are from the time they’re little, so hard work looks stupid to them. They’ll take some piece another kid has to work on for three weeks and polish it off in half the time, so the teacher figures they’ve put enough into it and lets them go to the next thing. And they do that in half the time and go on to the next piece. They never find out what it means to be hammered by the teacher; they lose out on a certain element required or character building. It’s a tragedy.
Haruki Murakami
People like hurting each other but loving is not a waste.
Ai Yazawa
When we lost something precious, and we'd looked and looked and still couldn't find it, then we didn't have to be completely heartbroken. We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day, when we were grown up, and we were free to travel the country, we could always go and find it again in Norfolk.
Kazuo Ishiguro
What brought you here isn't your fault. We human beings have to live each day to its fullest and do our best in whatever environment we find ourselves in. There's no need to feel any shame just because your "fullest" and "best" look different from those of others.
Naoki Higashida
The value of a person shouldn't be decided by the judgements of other people. Kindness brings out the best in us all.
Naoki Higashida
Dogs are actually very smart, it's just that they're rather clumsy, but it's this trait that makes humans attracted to them and why I love dogs so much.
Hiromu Arakawa
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
The key to keep a great friendship is not to make friends with the people who are really not your friend.
Hiroko Sakai
Real Friends' are someone who are right next to you when you got in emergency, not in only parties.
Hiroko Sakai
A friend to kill time is a friend sublime.
Haruki Murakami
Sheer effort enables those with nothing to surpass those with priviledge and position.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Sheer effort enables those with nothing to surpass those with privilege and position.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
I contemplate the bones for a while then turn away. I have work to do. Next year I will have an odako that is bigger, grander, more beautiful than anyone has ever seen. Next year.
Stan Sakai
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