Japanese Fiction Quotes & Sayings

Not they who reject the gods are profane, but those who accept them. — Lucretius

The line between him and the enemy had simultaneously blurred and solidified. Somehow, while perhaps it shouldn't have, this thought provided a strange sense of peace. — Kristina McMorris

To be understood a writer has to explain almost everything. — Eugene Delacroix

I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry. — Lafcadio Hearn

My lord, it is Patroclus, he is dead, his armour taken.. Hector is to blame.' There was a chilling silence, then a sudden intake of breath. Then a cry, low rising, increasing, then torn out of him, turned out of the depth of Hades... For Achilles, the only word 'Patroclus. — Byrne Fone

There's got to be a point where we fix the system so that legal immigration is easier than illegal immigration and show respect for people, a kid who might have been here for 10 years, that might be a valedictorian of their high school to say, no, no, no you're not allowed to go to college. I just think there's a point past which we are over the line. — Jeb Bush

We have adopted the convenient theory that the Bible is a Book to be explained, whereas first and foremost it is a Book to be believed (and after that to be obeyed.) — Leonard Ravenhill

His fingers were permanently yellowed with chalk dust rather than nicotine, but it was still the residue of an addicting substance. — Stephen King

I mutter and mutter and no one to listen. I speak my words in Japanese and my daughter will not hear them. The words that come from our ears, our mouths, they collide in the space between us.
"Obachan, please! I wish you would stop that. Is it too much to ask for some peace and quiet? You do this on purpose, don't you? Don't you! I just want some peace. Just stop! Please, just stop."
"Gomennasai. Waruine, Obachan wa. Solly. Solly."
Ha! Keiko, there is method in my madness. I could stand on my head and quote Shakespeare until I had a nosebleed, but to no avail, no one hears my language. So I sit and say the words and will, until the wind or I shall die. Someone, something must stand against this wind and I will. I am. — Hiromi Goto

The call of repentance is for the righteous and the unrighteous, the godly and the ungodly alike. If the righteous had been the lights they were called to be, the nation would never have fallen as it did. — Jonathan Cahn

I am not anti-American,' he said. 'I just despise the current American administration. I despair that Bush has made ordinary, decent people all over the world think twice about what was once, and still could be again, a great country, when what happened on September 11th should have made ordinary, decent people all over the world embrace America as never before. I don't like it that neo-conservative politicians bully their so-called allies while playing to the worst, racist instincts of their own bewildered electorate. I don't like it that we live in an era where to be anti-war is to be anti-American, to be pro-Palestine is to be anti-Semitic, to be critical of Blair is somehow to be supportive of Putin and Chirac. All anybody is asking for in this so-called age of terror is some leadership. Yet everywhere you look in public life there is no truth, no courage, no dignity to speak of. — Charles Cumming

Hank looked upwards for a second or two and said, "Hmm - well, in the Japanese way, if we don't know for sure, we always tell the person the worst possible result. That way, when they find out the actual case, they can only have the good feeling. — Richard Cezar

Tokyo in the late 1960s seemed to be like one of the futures that science fiction presents. Here was the proto- super-technology of the future, electronically, robotically, blahblahblah, intercut with traditional Japanese cultural patterns, Shinto patterns. — Ian Watson

I find Japanese books quite baffling when I read them in translation. It's only with Haruki Murakami that I find Japanse fiction that I can understand and relate to. He's a very international writer. — Kazuo Ishiguro

What alternative is there to the media's "Us" versus "Them"? The danger is that if it is used to prop up this "righteous" position of "ours" all we will see from now on are ever more exacting and minute analyses of the "dirty" distortions in "their" thinking. Without some flexibility in our definitions we'll remain forever stuck with the same old knee-jerk reactions, or worse, slide into complete apathy. — Haruki Murakami

Not because we think that it's still about to happen,
thus makes our future life as though yet to be exist.
Human mind can't yet perceive the nature of future. — Toba Beta

What's that?' Thaniel said, curious. The postmarks and stamps weren't English or Japanese.

'A painting. There's a depressed Dutchman who does countryside scenes and flowers and things. It's ugly, but I have to maintain the estates in Japan and modern art is a good investment. — Natasha Pulley

The challenge of film is making it right there at that moment, and then you get to move on. — Bernadette Peters

A year here and he still dreamed of cyberspace, hope fading nightly. All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the corners he cut in Night City, and he'd still see the matrix in his dreams, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colourless void ... The Sprawl was a long, strange way home now over the Pacific, and he was no Console Man, no cyberspace cowboy. Just another hustler, trying to make it through. But the dreams came on in the Japanese night like livewire voodoo, and he'd cry for it, cry in his sleep, and wake alone in the dark, curled in his capsule in some coffin hotel, hands clawed into the bedslab, temper foam bunched between his fingers, trying to reach the console that wasn't there. — William Gibson

During the Japanese invasion, bombs had fallen from the sky and people could run for cover. Now, they exploded in the middle of the road, or in the fields while people were playing soccer. — Mohamed Latiff Mohamed

The 'tail' of a comet, by the way, is a train of dust, but it is not streaming out behind the head of the comet as we might think. Instead, it is 'blown' by a stream of particles coming from the sun, which we call the solar wind. So the tail of the comet always points away from the sun, no matter which way the comet is travelling. There's an exciting proposal, once confined to science fiction stories but now being implemented by Japanese space engineers, to use the solar wind to propel spacecraft equipped with gigantic 'sails'. Like sailing yachts on the sea using real wind, solar wind space-yachts would theoretically provide a very economical way to travel to distant worlds. — Richard Dawkins

In seven days God had created the Earth. In a single day mankind had turned it upside down. — Kristina McMorris

Never settle for normal, Miss Lyons," Shinzo told her. "Normal is not natural. Extraordinary is natural, and that's why you're here. To do something extraordinary. — Kaylin McFarren

Lead me into all misfortune. Only by that path can I transform the negative into the positive. — Douglas Preston

For everything sacred has the substance of dreams and memories, and so we experience the miracle of what is separated from us by time or distance suddenly being made tangible. — Yukio Mishima

There are worlds beyond anything you can imagine; there are joys beyond anything you have experienced. There are ecstasies that are undreamed of, I assure you. — Frederick Lenz

He had been inspired to start a career in the porn industry after reading the incredible tale of a Japanese man who avenged the death of his sister by going down on her best friend for seven days and seven nights. — Mark Jackman

Perhaps for many Japanese, autobiographical fiction writing is life. We are a people expected to complement, to harmonize, to anticipate one another's needs. All without a single spoken clue.

And the reason is that he's in training to be a writer. Observing detail, understanding irony, interpreting motivation. Hiro knows that acts are symbolic. The hard sour fruit offered too soon in its season carries a message. He has made an error in the timing of his visit. He has inconvenienced that family.

This is the Japanese way. Cogitating on inner meaning. Revealing ourselves and perceiving others through carefully crafted scenes.

Writing our endless I-stories. — Lydia Minatoya

If I choose to write about sheep, it's just because I happened to write about sheep. There is no deep significance. — Haruki Murakami

Alice Gray returned with a lacquered Japanese tray bearing two steaming cups, a sugar bowl, and a little pitcher of milk. I took a seat on the sofa. The coffee was strong and bitter. I lightened it with some milk. My hostess settled into one of the wing chairs. "Vee says Beth is missing," she said, sipping her coffee. — Janet Dawson

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