Quotes & Sayings About Japan

Japan Air's orbital terminus was a white toroid studded with domes and ringed with the dark-rimmed oval openings of docking bays. — William Gibson

I am the grandson of immigrants from Japan who went to America, boldly going to a strange new world, seeking new opportunities. My mother was born in Sacramento, California. My father was a San Franciscan. They met and married in Los Angeles, and I was born there. — George Takei

Foreigners who think of Japan as a polite society have never ridden the Yamanote at rush hour. The — Barry Eisler

I wouldn't mind a little bow. In Japan, they bow. I love it. Only thing I love about Japan. — Donald Trump

For most of their history in China, Pugs were treasured dogs. By law, they could only be owned by nobility or by Buddhist monks. However, because they were held in such high regard, they were also used as pawns in international relations. In 732 C.E., China gave a Pug to Japan as a gift to cement diplomatic relations. The Japanese became infatuated with this dog, and it became the first of many given to Japanese diplomats. — Liz Palika

With the idea that a single creator can build a society wherein a huge number of people will live, Le Corbusier later approached Stalin. In India, he charmed a powerful provincial family and ended up making huge, sculptural relics in Chandigarh. — Masato Otaka

And so I told him how living in Japan would give him a leisure no mere tourist has, to know the rhythms of the place, a land of tiny poems. — Donna George Storey

And then the industry itself was so cocky about what they were doing that they weren't seeing what was coming on the horizon with Japan and Germany and other places that were building smaller cars. — David Maraniss

Our cooking depends upon shadows and is inseparable from darkness — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

I'm thinking of people in rural Japan and China, where McDonald's hasn't yet arrived. These are the thinnest, healthiest, longest-lived people with the least risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. — Neal Barnard

I first met Hanson over in Japan and they gave me some great advice about the fans and they seem real down to earth. They're great. — Meredith Brooks

Go to any Shinto temple in Japan and you'll see it: a simple stand from which hang hundreds of wooden postcard-size plaques with a colorful image on one side and, on the other, densely scribbled Japanese characters in black felt-tip pen, pleas to the gods for help or succor. — Hanya Yanagihara

In Japan, Australia, and England there is such a strong youth culture. — Marc Newson

We believe in fair exchange rates and Japan doesn't practice that. They have massive U.S. dollar reserves, and they use them to intervene regularly. — Rick Wagoner

It goes without saying that the stability of the Middle East is the foundation for peace and prosperity for the world, and of course for Japan, should we leave terrorism or weapons of mass destruction to spread in this region, the loss imparted upon the international community would be immeasurable. — Shinzo Abe

Everything can draw inspiration: a vintage cloth, a book, a street-when I was in Japan, I was deeply inspired by Japanese pharmacies. — Renzo Rosso

I glanced at the contents of what I was photocopying. They were the rules of the golf club of which Mister Saito was a member. I started to laugh.
The next minute I felt more like crying, thinking about all the innocent trees that my superior was wasting to chastise me. I imagined the forests of the Japan of my childhood - maples, cedars, and ginkgoes - felled for the sole purpose of punishing a creature as insignificant as myself. I remembered, again, that Fubuki's family name meant forest. — Amelie Nothomb

I've always said that growing up in postwar Japan, I never felt any connection to my work through those experiences. The work I do really comes from inside myself. For me, being born in Japan was an accident. — Rei Kawakubo

For me, creation can only come out of a certain kind of unhappiness. They say in Japan, this thing like the hungry spirit - the hungry mind - is what gets you going forward. — Rei Kawakubo

Japan is the first nation in the world to accord 'comic books'
originally a 'humorous' form of entertainment mainly for young people
nearly the same social status as novels and films. — Frederik L. Schodt

Since ancient times, people from throughout Asia have brought to Japan their talents, knowledge and energy, helping to lay the basis for Japan's existence as a country. — Daisaku Ikeda

I received a letter just before I left office from a man. I don't know why he chose to write it, but I'm glad he did. He wrote that you can go to live in France, but you can't become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Italy, but you can't become a German, an Italian. He went through Turkey, Greece, Japan and other countries. But he said anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American. — Ronald Reagan

The secret to making yourself stronger is to absorb the strength of the people around you - energy begets energy. — Adachi Zenko

We stick to the magical places in the world," Asahi clarified.

"Places like the MBRC, the Redwood forest of California, the less populated parts of New Zealand and Japan, Disney World, and Atlantis," Madeline listed, ticking the places off on her fingers.

"Wait, Disney World?" I interrupted.

"The most magical place on Earth. — K.M. Shea

Sometimes, when we are sad, we have to do the opposite of sad. Sometimes we have to sing. — Daisy Whitney

If I write in my name to the agents of England and France residing in Asia and inform them that Japan is ready to make a commercial treaty with their countries, the number of steamers will be reduced from fifty to two or three. — Townsend Harris

When I went to a school in Japan, they told me that both the teachers and students perform cleaning tasks here to keep the schools clean. I wondered why can't we do it in India. — Narendra Modi

The United States, with the greatest ability and the weakest desire to finance a welfare state, winds up in the middle of the pack in terms of the absolute value of the resources devoted to it. By 2003 ... America's per capita Public Expenditures were greater than those in Japan, Spain, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, while lower than those in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Denmark and Sweden. — William Voegeli

People like to say the West is a guilt-based culture, while that of Japan is based on shame, with the chief distinction being that the former is an internalized emotion while the latter depends on the presence of a group. But — Barry Eisler

How much does he lack himself who must have many things? — Sen No Rikyu

I was born in Yangzhou, China, two years after World War II ended. I was 5 when my family escaped to Taiwan. Eight years later, we moved to Japan. — Andrew Cherng

I would like to inform you with great satisfaction of a new step forward on establishing partnership between Russia and Japan — Vladimir Putin

My goal is to draw a line with some 'flavor' to it. — Andy Couturier

I feel grateful to be this size; after all, if I weren't small and had not achieved these world records, I might never have been able to visit Japan and Europe and many other wonderful countries. — Jyoti Amge

V-J Day, or Victory in Japan Day, marks the date of the Japanese surrender that ended fighting in the Pacific. — Doc Hastings

I love eating shabu-shabu in Japan - a kind of beef hotpot. But if you're talking about authentic, traditional food, then Italian cooking is one of the best in the world. — Andrea Bocelli

Psychologically speaking (I'll only wheel out the amateur psychology just this once, so bear with me), encounters that call up strong physical disgust or revulsion are often in fact projections of our own faults and weaknesses. — Haruki Murakami

Luna Sea's music moves quickly but intelligibly, with a darkly frenetic, creative energy. — Josephine Yun

Anything to do with any new form of tax, like consumption tax in Japan, carbon tax in Australia, these are big issues that cannot be easily decided. — Najib Razak

It is dark and there are bad creatures in these woods."
"Yes, there are ... — Katlyn Charlesworth

Then along came that tsunami that hit the Fukushima Daiichi plant and, well, no one is building nuclear power plants in Japan now, are they? — Patricia Briggs

I went to the Tokyo Film Festival in Japan because I love Japanese cinema. — Leslie Caron

It seems the best approach for any venture is a combo platter - Japan's quality-consciousness paired with America's willingness to experiment and (sometimes) fail. — Daniel H. Pink

I had actually been on tour in Japan and I had my own world tour that I was doing. I was used to doing a show for an hour, so I was always learning choreography. — Christina Milian

Japan. So successful was the Japanese 'welfare superpower' that by the 1970s life expectancy in Japan had become the longest in the world. But that, combined with a falling birth rate, has produced the world's oldest society, with more than 21 per cent of the population already over the age of 65. — Niall Ferguson

If I have trust in Catholicism, it is because I find in it much more possibility than in any other religion for presenting the full symphony of humanity. The other religions have almost no fullness; they have but solo parts. Only Catholicism can present the full symphony. And unless there is in that symphony a part that corresponds to Japan ... it cannot be a true religion. — Shusaku Endo

When we arrived in Japan in 1988, we were not prepared for the overwhelming support shown to us. — Dennis Banks

It was a different sense of isolation from what he normally felt in Japan. And not such a bad feeling, he decided. Being alone in two senses of the word was maybe like a double negation of isolation. In other words, it made perfect sense for him, a foreigner, to feel isolated here. The thought calmed him. He was in exactly the right place. — Haruki Murakami

It's just that, when I'm in Japan I could foretell to a certain degree what would be accepted, so I certainly don't come up with any crazy arrangements. — Utada Hikaru

When you mail Ichiro something from the States, you only have to use that name on the address and he gets it (in Japan). He's that big. — Ichiro Suzuki

I believe that the civilization India evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors, Rome went, Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become Westernized; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation. — Mahatma Gandhi

The Japanese have two words: "uchi" meaning inside and "soto" meaning outside. Uchi refers to their close friends, the people in their inner circle. Soto refers to anyone who is outside that circle. And how they relate and communicate to the two are drastically different. To the soto, they are still polite and they might be outgoing, on the surface, but they will keep them far away, until they are considered considerate and trustworthy enough to slip their way into the uchi category. Once you are uchi, the Japanese version of friendship is entire universes beyond the average American friendship! Uchi friends are for life. Uchi friends represent a sacred duty. A Japanese friend, who has become an uchi friend, is the one who will come to your aid, in your time of need, when all your western "friends" have turned their back and walked away. — Alexei Maxim Russell

The ambiguous orientation of Japan drove the country into the position of an invader in Asia. — Kenzaburo Oe

In Japan, full-time homemakers have no economic power of their own, and they socially lead a faceless, anonymous existence. — Natsuo Kirino

Still, he had been a charismatic, talented scoundrel who almost certainly was on to a new woman after a week in Japan; there was nothing to long for or feel sorry for. — J. Ryan Stradal

I really love traveling to Japan. — Christina Aguilera

The United Nations research states that men with the longest life expectancy are from Japan, followed by Switzerland. I am rather surprised at this result as since time immemorial we have been doing the Karva Chauth fast to make sure our men have long lives, and the results should have definitely shown by now. I scan the list, confident that in this chart of life expectancy, the Indian man must definitely be in the top 5. Nope! There are 146 countries above us where the men have longer lifespans, and the biggest blow is that even with four wives who don't fast for them, the Arab men outlive our good old Indian dudes. — Twinkle Khanna

The neck is kind of what's sexy in Japan, so you have to have the kimono a little bit back. It was just a whole different way of appealing to what was sexy. — Lucy Liu

For the casual viewer, Kurosawa's films can be an exercise in endurance. — Jerry White

Japan is already a leader in energy efficiency, and it has a wealth of innovative technologies. We must put this expertise to use creating a model for growth and sustainability that we can share with the world. — Yoshihiko Noda

I'm not a big star in Japan. I'm an actor. I have a very normal life. Four days a week, I cook at home. A star doesn't do that. — Ken Watanabe

I loved Japan. I used to read a lot about it when I was a child. And I always wanted to go. And it was delightful. I absolutely loved it. What a smashing place. — Billy Connolly

Truly a good horse, good ground to gallop on, and sunshine, make up the sum of enjoyable travelling. — Isabella L. Bird

I wanted to have a title that wasn't in English so that someone in France, for instance, could ask for 'dix-huit' or the someone in Japan could ask for 'juhachi.' — Moby

Japan functions on the basis of everyone sharing certain assumptions, where each person knows his part in a larger whole. The foreigner sits outside and is threatening. If he comes in, that's the most threatening of all. — Pico Iyer

The United States Navy, during the war, used Navajos as "code-talkers" who relayed messages from ship to ship, talking in Navajo (a language not studied in Japan). — Michael Lesk

I've never been invited to do an exhibition or do a talk in England, except once, about 10 years ago. I've given talks all across Canada, many in the United States, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan - but not England. — Brian Wildsmith

If war should break out between England and Japan, the latter would suffer much more than the former. — Townsend Harris

Fracking is our biggest enemy right now in the U.S. Actually, not just in the U.S., because all our water systems are interconnected. Whether you're reading this in New York State or in Japan, fracking is screwing you over. — Ian Somerhalder

Because my parents were American missionaries who sent me to public schools in rural Japan, I had to confront Hiroshima as a child. I was in the fourth grade - the only American in my class - when our teacher wrote the words "America" and "Atomic Bomb" in white chalk on the blackboard. All forty Japanese children turned around to stare at me. My country had done something unforgivable and I had to take responsibility for it, all by myself. I desperately wanted to dig a hole under my desk, to escape my classmates' mute disbelief and never have to face them again. — Linda Hoaglund

At the suggestion of Professor Itaru Watanabe, and with his help, I left Japan at the age of twenty-three to pursue graduate study at the University of California at San Diego. — Susumu Tonegawa

But once I could look back on it in a calmer frame of mind, it struck me that his motive was surely not so simple and straightforward. Had it resulted from a fatal collision between reality and ideals? Perhaps - but this was still not quite it. Eventually, I began to wonder whether it was not the same unbearable loneliness that I now felt that had brought K to his decision. — Soseki Natsume

I was a star in Italy, Austrailia, Germany and Japan before the American stations ever paid attention at all. — Nancy Sinatra

It was such a dismal time in Japan. It almost seemed as if they were dying as a people, their economy in tatters, the population dwindling, the remaining citizens isolated and adrift. Had they been wrong about everything? Kenzo wondered. The power of consensus and obligation, the imperatives of racial purity and harmony? — Don Lee

There is one thing I can say for certain: the older a person gets, the lonelier he becomes. It's true for everyone. But maybe that isn't wrong. What I mean is, in a sense our lives are nothing more than a series of stages to help us get used to loneliness. That being the case, there's no reason to complain. And besides who would be complaint to anyway? (A Walk To Kobe, Granta 124: Travel) — Haruki Murakami

I've done Last Samurai in Japan, in LA, in New Zealand. Even in Japan it is very hard to shoot, because there's been so many changes. Only around a temple can we shoot. — Hiroyuki Sanada

In Japan there is a lot of manga, but around manga there are video games, manga on cellphones, manga in card games ... so people not only enjoy manga but also the products around it. — Tite Kubo

In my wide travels across the world and my meetings with various heads of states, be that Africa or South Asia, Singapore or in high level meetings in the U.S., U.K. or Japan, one common mention is about Dr. Singh's extraordinary reputation as a Wise Man, an outstanding Economist and a fine Gentleman. — Sunil Mittal

When I lived in New York, there wasn't as much TV or film around. I got asked to do a couple of indie films, just based on me being from The Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle. I did a couple of indie movies from Japan and one from Canada, and I thought it was an exciting, fun thing to do. I had a great time doing it, it was just that, in New York, there really wasn't as much. My studio in New York closed, so I moved out to L.A. and just started looking into composing as another thing to do, as a musician. I like it a lot. It's fun and it's a different way of thinking about music. — James Iha

People don't put as much of an emphasis in expanding their choices, so that, you know, one of the things that I learned when I was in Japan way back in the 1990's and there were all these quarrels happening between the U.S. and Japan about allowing more American products into the Japanese market. — Sheena Iyengar

In contrast to what many people in Britain and the United States believe, the true figures on growth (as best one can judge from official national accounts data) show that Britain and the United States have not grown any more rapidly since 1980 than Germany, France, Japan, Denmark, or Sweden. In other words, the reduction of top marginal income tax rates and the rise of top incomes do not seem to have stimulated productivity (contrary to the predictions of supply-side theory) or at any rate did not stimulate productivity enough to be statistically detectable at the macro level. — Thomas Piketty

...erosion control in Japan is like a game of chess. The forest
engineer, after studying his eroding valley, makes his first move, locating and building
one or more check dams. He waits to see what Nature's response is. This determines the
forest engineer's next move, which may be another dam or two, an increase in the former
dam, or the construction of side retaining walls. After another pause for observation, the
next move is made and so on until erosion is checkmated." (An Agricultural Testament) — Albert Howard

I have done several films, but I've mostly done TV, and 99% of the work I've done has been in Japan. — Julie Dreyfus

The conflict between Japan and Chiang is little affected by the fall of the Wuhan cities and Sino-Japanese hostilities have just started. — Seishiro Itagaki

In Japan, however, if you against someone and create a bad atmosphere, your relations may break-off completely. People tend to react emotionally, and most are afraid of being excluded from the group. — Roger J. Davies

The Germans will be beaten in a few months. And Japan will be beaten a few months after that. If I were to give up my life now, it wouldn't be for my country. It would be for Cathcart and Korn. So I'm turning my bombsight in for the duration. From now on I'm thinking only of me. — Joseph Heller

Half of Japan still couldn't tell the difference between crime and politics. — Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

The buddha-dharma does not invite us to dabble in abstract notions. Rather, the task it presents us with is to attend to what we actually experience, right in this moment. You don't have to look "over there." You don't have to figure anything out. You don't have to acquire anything. And you don't have to run off to Tibet, or Japan, or anywhere else. You wake up right here. In fact, you can only wake up right here.
So you don't have to do the long search, the frantic chase, the painful quest. You're already right where you need to be. — Steve Hagen

Lady #1, Maki, had never once given any thought to what was really right for her in her life, simply believing that if she surrounded herself with super-exclusive things, she'd become a super-exclusive person. — Ryu Murakami

Well, I've never been to Japan so I couldn't say. I do know that we have a bit of a following there however. — Trevor Dunn

This may seem labouring the obvious, but in Japan one meets intelligent people who claim that 'logic' is something invented in the West to allow Westerners to win discussions. Indeed, the belief is widespread that the Japanese can as happily do without logic now as they supposedly have for centuries past. — Karel Van Wolferen

The economy is very sick. We're losing our jobs to China to Japan to every country. We're making horrible trade deals. We are losing jobs in this country. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost. And part of the reason is our taxes are so high in this country. I'm also cutting, you know they don't talk about that. — Donald Trump

I have experienced failure as a politician and for that very reason, I am ready to give everything for Japan. — Shinzo Abe

Your daughter's coming of age, you ought to let her see the world a little. — Susumu Katsumata

I traveled the world ten times over doing something I never thought I'd do in a million years. I found myself in Tokyo, Japan. I (was in) a Dell Computer commercial, the first thing I had ever done, and I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the green screens, I fell in love with (everything). The translator was explaining everything to me. It was a passion like I had never felt before. I came back and it took me five years to really accept that that was okay. — Drew Waters

A Japanese woman friend whose infant son died seven days into his life - no detectable reason - just the small breathing becoming nothing until it disappeared, told me that in Japan, there is a two-term word - "mizugo" - which translates loosely to "water children." Children who did not live long enough to enter the world as we live in it. In Japan, there are rituals for mothers and families, practices and prayers for the water children. There are shrines where a person can visit and deliver words and love and offerings to the water children. — Lidia Yuknavitch

We have listened here to the delegates who have recalled the terrible human suffering, and the great material destruction of the late war in the Pacific. It is with feelings of sorrow that we recall the part played in that catastrophic human experience by the old Japan. — Shigeru Yoshida

In Japan, I took part in a tea ceremony. You go into a small room, tea is served, and that's it really, except that everything is done with so much ritual and ceremony that a banal daily event is transformed into a moment of communion with the universe. — Okakura Kakuzo

Indeed, there were those who maintained that Russia's defeat at the hands of the Japanese was itself the result of a Jewish conspiracy. According to S. A. Nilus, a secret Jewish council known as the Sanhedrin had hypnotized the Japanese into believing they were one of the tribes of Israel; it was the Jews' aim, Nilus insisted, 'to set a distraught Russia awash with blood and to inundate it, and then Europe, with the yellow hordes of a resurgent China guided by Japan'. The — Niall Ferguson