Japanese Humor Quotes & Sayings

To make yourself something less than you can be - that too is a form of suicide. — Benjamin Lichtenberg

Eli Willard just looked at her for a long moment, and then he announced, 'Lady of the Lake strikes iceberg in mid-Atlantic; 215 drown. New York City fire destroys 700 buildings. Japanese earthquake kills 12,000. Worldwide cholera epidemic kills millions. Wages rise, but prices rise faster. Financial crash occurs on Van Buren's 36th day in office. Nation begins first great depression. Bank failures and closings spread like plague. 200,000 are unemployed. Business bankrupt; only pawnbrokers prosper. Van Buren declares ten-hour days on all federal jobs. There. Does that make you feel any better? — Donald Harington

The best way to tell whether the Norwegian is a Norwegian is to say:
"Are you Swedish?"
Regardless whether you say this in English, French, Italian, Japanese, Urdu or Swahili, he will answer:
"Swedish? Me? I'm a Norwegian!"
Then you will be able to tell. — Odd Borretzen

leave you alone. — Kate DiCamillo

Before marriage, we are carried along by the force of the in-love obsession. After marriage, we revert to being the people we were before we fell in love. — Gary Chapman

Selflessness involves giving up your self. You become a martyr. Like the Hindu kamikaze warriors. These Japanese Hindus chose to give up their lives, and they were killed if they didn't. Imagine what their families felt. One day you have a father, and next, you're watching him fly a plane into a ship on Pearl Harbor on television. Those kids didn't do anything wrong. They just lived in an evil country. The axis of evil. That sort of evil is beyond anything you or I will experience in our lifetimes. So be glad. Be glad we live in the US of A. Be glad we get to choose, with our freedoms. Now get out there and fight! — Bill Konigsberg

Violent video games played in public places are a tiny fraction of the media violence to which modern American children are exposed. Tiny - and judging from the record of this case not very violent compared to what is available to children on television and in movie theaters today. — Richard Posner

Imagine what I could have done in ten years. I could have learned to speak Japanese. I could have played every RPG video game ever created, and if I spoke Japanese I could have played the foreign ones too! Man, I could have built a spaceship in my backyard and flew it to the moon and back, if I wanted. — Kevin James Breaux

I've got six months to sort out the hackers, get the Japanese knotweed under control and find an acceptable form of narcissus. — Jasper Fforde

I had a dream about you last night. In this dream we were walking down the beautiful Japanese streets of Florida. Fukuoka is nice in the summer. — Rodney Jenkins

Gingerly, Daniel reached toward the infant. "What if she doesn't like me?"

"She'll spit acid in your eye and you'll die a horrible death," Kara joked. — Jacqueline Diamond

I like the relaxed way in which the Japanese approach religion. I think of myself as basically a moral person, but I'm definitely not religious, and I'm very tired of the preachiness and obsession with other people's behavior characteristic of many religious people in the United States. As far as I could tell, there's nothing preachy about Buddhism. I was in a lot of temples, and I still don't know what Buddhists believe, except that at one point Kunio said 'If you do bad things, you will be reborn as an ox.'
This makes as much sense to me as anything I ever heard from, for example, the Reverend Pat Robertson. — Dave Barry

College football is the only game in the country, of any kind, that the college game is longer than the pro game. — Nick Saban

Maybe he was what Lucian would have turned out to be if the old sheriff hadn't have lived in such interesting times. A couple of years in a Japanese prison camp might be just what Turk needed. But I didn't have a bridge over the river Kwai for him to build so we had to settle for Powder Junction. — Craig Johnson

As humans, it is in our nature to focus on picking ourselves up while the whole world falls apart. — Joshua Teya

He gave me a lot, but it would have never been enough." He looks thoughtful as he gazes back down at me. "It would never have been enough," he tells me," because it would never have been you — T.J. Klune

Coincidentally, a good age for a Japanese girl is younger than twenty five, because that's when she turns into a 'Christmas Cake'. Christmas cakes, as everyone knows, are desirable before the twenty fifth but afterward quickly become stale and are put on the shelf. — Andrew Davidson

Obama, like Carter, is reacting to warning signs by seeking to split the difference between dispirited Democrats and increasingly radicalized Republicans. — Eric Alterman

I love crafting. Knitting, decoupage, scrapbooking, any "lady-ish" art form, I'm a fan. For about six months each. Then I shove all the supplies in a closet, alongside the skeletons of long dead New Year's resolutions, like saber fencing, playing the ukulele, and Japanese brush painting. — Felicia Day

No wonder he'd never really finished becoming one of us. We just thought it was because he was half Japanese, and lived in a huge house on the other side of town with a dad who was never home and who none of our parents had ever met. And possibly because he was an arrogant moody stuck-on-himself creepazoid And here he wasn't even a real gizmohead. He was just a grind. And a werewolf. — Robin McKinley

I started to speak to him in his native tongue, "why would you want to sit with me?" He pressed his lips together, and his eyebrows screwed up. He ran a hand through his spiky black hair. "I don' speak Japanese," He said in English. "But My parents do." "Strange," I said. "A Japanese boy who only speaks English? — Rebecca Maizel

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

Consequently, [Terayama Shuuji] often played the buffoon to his more serious colleagues, as he did in a July, 1970, dialogue with Mishima Yukio . . . At one point, [Terayama] laughingly suggested to the very earnest Mishima that Tenjou Sajiki might sponsor a one-man show in which Mishima would demonstrate his famous ability to flex his carefully sculpted upper-body muscles. Mishima refused to be angered by this obvious lack of respect. — Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei

There was a man of the cloth - Reverend Shibata of the First Baptist Church - who left urging everyone to forgive and forget. There was a man in a shiny brown suit - fry cook Kanda of Yabu Noodle - who left urging Reverend Shibata to give it a rest. — Julie Otsuka

The future is like a Japanese game show,
you never know what's going on. — Tracy Jordan

The best way to learn Japanese is to be born as a Japanese baby, in Japan, raised by a Japanese family. — Dave Barry

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

Is it white wine? Red tastes like vinegar.'

'Of course it's white wine, I'm Japanese. — Natasha Pulley

There is no hope for television by means of cathode-ray tubes. — John Logie Baird

It is true of course, that I have a will of iron, but it can be switched off if the circumstances seem to demand it. — P.G. Wodehouse

("I knew it," Conor grumbled. "These kinds of stories always have stupid princes falling in love." He started walking back to the house. "I thought this was going to be good.")
(With one swift movement, the monster grabbed Conor's ankles in a long, strong hand and flipped him upside down, holding him in mid-air so his T-shirt rucked up and his heartbeat thudded in his head.)
(As I was saying, said the monster.) — Patrick Ness

There are other ways to get back at your phone you know, if it's being naughty, you could simply make it communicate in Japanese,put it on silent, or even take away its battery privileges. — Holly Denham

The Japanese island of Okunoshima, also called "Rabbit Island" after the many furry inhabitants who live there, was once home to Japan's poison gas factories. The rabbits are descendants of ones used for chemical testing during World War II. — Cary McNeal

Gracie: You have an unusual house. Have you lived here long?
Bobby Tom: A couple of years. I don't much like it myself, but the architect is real proud of it. She calls it urban Stone Age with a Japanese Tahitian influence. I sort of just call it ugly. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

You sure you're not a Roman, Annabeth? Or an Amazon? — Rick Riordan

This is humor: A Japanese woman experiences discomfort in her eye, so she goes to see a qualified ophthalmologist. After a thorough examination, the doctor tells the Japanese woman that she has a cataract. She says, 'No, I don't. I have a Lincoln Continental. — Lee Goldberg

And, well, mine are kind of on the heavy side anyway. The first day or two, I don't want to do ANYTHING. Make sure you keep away from me then.'
I'd like to, but how can I tell?' I asked.
O.K., I'll wear a hat for a couple of days after my period starts. A red one. That should work,' she said with a laugh. 'If you see me on the street and I'm wearing a red hat, don't talk to me, just run away. — Haruki Murakami

When I want to be beloved, I love someone. — Debasish Mridha

O-suzu left whatever work she was doing at her sewing machine and dragged Takeo back to O-yoshi and her son.
How dare you behave so selfishly! Now tell O-yoshi-san that you are sorry. Get down on the mats and make a proper bow! — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

A series of howls and war cries echoed through the camp ... The werewolves and Japanese had attacked.
-pg.353 Forbidden Nights with a Vampire Kerrelyn Sparks — Kerrelyn Sparks

And Hackman had really choked up when he was telling it. It was very moving. — Wes Anderson

My parents never understood me; they were Japanese. — Chic Murray