Quotes & Sayings About Japanese Literature

Chained inside the carriage is a sinful woman. When we set the carriage afire, her flesh will be roasted, her bones will be charred: she will die an agonizing death. Never again will you have such a perfect model for the screen. Do not fail to watch as her snow-white flesh erupts in flames. See and remember her long black hair dancing in a whirl of sparks! — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

A lot of my stories are inspired by Japanese folklore or literature or movies: I've done stories based on Kabuki and Noh plays, and on Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo' movies. — Stan Sakai

As much as any contemporary writer, Murakami grasps the bewildering fluidity of commoditized life. — Japan Foundation

Through his mad fancying he remembered Mokunosuke's words: "Whoever you are, you are a man after all. You are no cripple with those fine limbs." Whether he was the son of an emperor or the child of an intrigue, was he not a child of the heavens and the earth? — Eiji Yoshikawa

Isn't there someone kind enough to come strangle me in my sleep? — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

When you're a kid, getting lost isn't just an event or a situation, it's like a career move. You get this thrill of anxiety and fear and a feeling that you've done something that can never be undone. — Ryu Murakami

I really should have died then, Tsukuru often told himself. Then this world, the one in the here and now, wouldn't exist. It was a captivating, bewitching thought. The present world wouldn't exist, and reality would no longer be real. As far as this world was concerned, he would simply no longer exist - just as this world would no longer exist for him. — Haruki Murakami

I read mostly Irish, African, Japanese, South American, and African writers. You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style. — Chris Abani

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

Directly beneath the Lotus Pond of Paradise lay the lower depths of Hell, and as He peered through the crystalline waters, He could see the River of Three Crossings and the Mountain of Needles as clearly as if He were viewing pictures in a peep-box. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Don't yield! Keep up your courage! The same sun looks down on all of us! — Eiji Yoshikawa

[Donald] Keene observed [in a book entitled The Pleasures of Japanese Literature, 1988] that the Japanese sense of beauty has long sharply differed from its Western counterpart: it has been dominated by a love of irregularity rather than symmetry, the impermanent rather than the eternal and the simple rather than the ornate. The reason owes nothing to climate or genetics, added Keene, but is the result of the actions of writers, painters and theorists, who had actively shaped the sense of beauty of their nation.
Contrary to the Romantic belief that we each settle naturally on a fitting idea of beauty, it seems that our visual and emotional faculties in fact need constant external guidance to help them decide what they should take note of and appreciate. 'Culture' is the word we have assigned to the force that assists us in identifying which of our many sensations we should focus on and apportion value to. — Alain De Botton

He was beneath the waves, a creature crawling the ocean bottom. — Doppo Kunikida

How was Gengo to know, Saigyo reflected, that this unheroic existence imposed even greater torment than the icy lashings of the Nachi Falls in its thousand-foot leap? How was Gengo to realize that Saigyo had not slept a single night undisturbed since he had fled his home for the Eastern Hills, that his sleep was haunted by the cries of his beloved daughter from whom he had torn himself.
Who knew that during the day, when he went about his tasks of drawing water and chopping wood as he composed verses, the sighting of the wind in the treetops of the valleys below and the pines surrounding the temple sounded to him like the mourning of his young wife, and so troubled his nights that sleep no longer visited him? Never again would Saigyo find peace. He had wrenched asunder the living boughs of the tree that was his life. Remorse and compassion for his loved ones would dog him to the end of his days. — Eiji Yoshikawa

'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' is one of the most famous books of all Japanese literature, written by the great poet Basho in 1689. — Richard Flanagan

The destination of the soul: this is what I, led on by Nils Holgersson, came to seek in the literature of Western Europe. I fervently hope that my pursuit, as a Japanese, of literature and culture will, in some small measure, repay Western Europe for the light it has shed upon the human condition. — Kenzaburo Oe

I can only bow to the will of the heaven, but not to the will of these men. — Eiji Yoshikawa

Knowing that it is the earth we tread, we learn to tread carefully, lest it be rent open. Realizing that it is the heavens that hang above us, we come to fear the echoing thunderbolt. The world demands that we battle with others for the sake of our own reputation, and so we undergo the sufferings bred of illusion. While we live in this world with its daily business, forced to walk the tightrope of profit and loss, true love is an empty thing, and the wealth before our eyes mere dust. — Soseki Natsume

Some Western readers commonly use the Japanese word manga to mean serious comic-book literature. According to one of my Japanese friends, this usage is wrong. The word manga means "idle picture" and is used in Japan to describe collections of trivial comic-book stories. The correct word for serious comic-book literature is gekiga, meaning "dramatic picture. — Freeman Dyson

He was said to have survived starvation by eating human flesh, after which he had the strength to tear out the antlers of a living stag with his bare hands. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

The law is an accumulation of tireless attempts to block a man's desire to change life into an instant of poetry. Certainly it would not be right to let everybody exchange his life for a line of poetry written with a splash of blood. But the mass of men, lacking valor, pass away their lives without ever feeling the least touch of such a desire. — Yukio Mishima

Here
you warriors
why this moaning and complaining? Have you no more sense than toads and vipers? Our time hasn't come. Have you no patience? Are we not the 'trodden weed' still? The time is not yet here for us to raise our heads. Must you still complain? — Eiji Yoshikawa

From then on, my thesis hung over me like a curse, and with bloodshot eyes, I worked like a madman. — Soseki Natsume

People can endure almost anything but there's one thing they can't survive. Man is an animal that can't stand boredom — Koji Suzuki

I was afraid to go into a restaurant because I was intimidated by the waiters furtively hovering behind me waiting for my plate to be emptied. Most of all I dreaded paying a bill-my awkwardness when I handed over the money after buying something did not arise from my stinginess, but from excessive tension, excessive embarrassment, excessive uneasiness and apprehension. — Osamu Dazai

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way. — Haruki Murakami

If you hurt her any more than you already have, the wound could be too deep to fix. — Haruki Murakami

Great art projects a sense of inexhaustibility. In literature, particularly in poetry, this may be accomplished through ambiguity: Beneath each and every meaning that I can descry lie others, so that rereading holds out the prospect of new subtleties, inversions, secret codes and ineffabilities — William T. Vollmann

If you're going to give up so quickly, I don't think you'll last long but you should try telling yourself you won't ever give up. Nobody can say how this will turn out but you should try the hardest you've ever tried in your life so you'll have no regrets — Hitori Nakano

Every time he studied this instrument, with its slender, gleaming steel rod that tapered down to such needle-like sharpness, he wondered why it was necessary to have things like this in the world. If it were truly only for chopping ice, you'd think a completely different design might do. The people who produce and sell things like this don't understand, he thought. They don't realize that some of us break out in a cold sweat at just a glimpse of that shiny, pointed tip. — Ryu Murakami

People have separated from each other with walls of concrete that blocked the roads to connection and love. and Nature has been defeated in the name of development. — Yasunari Kawabata

Still more horrible was the color of the flames that licked the latticed cabin vents before shooting skyward, as though - might I say? - the sun itself had crashed to earth, spewing its heavenly fire in all directions. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Great robber though he was, Kandata could only trash about like a dying frog as he choked on the blood of the pond. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

See, see how the sun has moved onward while we talked. Nothing can stop it in its course. Prayers cannot halt the revolving of nature. It is the same with human life. Victory and defeat are one in the vast stream of life. Victory is the beginning of defeat, and who can rest safely in victory? Impermanence is the nature of all things of this world. Even you will find your ill fortunes too will change. It is easy to understand the impatience of the old, whose days are numbered, but why should you young ones fret when the future is yours? — Eiji Yoshikawa

A feeling of liberation should contain a bracing feeling of negation, in which liberation itself is not negated. In the moment a captive lion steps out of his cage, he possesses a wider world than the lion who has known only the wilds. While he was in captivity, there were only two worlds to him; the world of the cage, and the world outside the cage. Now he is free. He roars. He attacks people. He eats them. yet he is not satisfied, for there is no third world that is neither the world of the cage nor the world outside the cage. Etsuko however, had in her heart not the slightest interest in these matters. Her soul knew nothing but affirmation. — Yukio Mishima

We Orientals tend to seek our satisfactions in whatever surroundings we happen to find ourselves, to content ourselves with things as they are; and so darkness causes us no discontent, we resign ourselves to it as inevitable. If light is scarce, then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty. But the progressive Westerner is determined always to better his lot. From candle to oil lamp, oil lamp to gaslight, gaslight to electric light - his quest for a brighter light never ceases, he spares no pains to eradicate even the minutest shadow. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Just before I fell asleep, I had a moment of panic ... — Ryu Murakami

... Her desire was close to that of the person who drowns himself; he does not necessarily covet death so much as what comes after the drowning - something different from what he had before, at least a different world. — Yukio Mishima

It's odd how one's memories of youth turn out so bleak. Why does the business of growing up - one's recollections of growth itself - have to be so tragic? I still haven't found the answer. I doubt if anybody has. When I finally reach that stage at which the placid wisdom of old age ... occasionally descends on a person, then I too may suddenly discover that I understand. But I doubt whether, by that time, understanding will have much point. — Yukio Mishima

There's a long history of anthropomorphic animals in Japanese literature. The so-called 'funny animal scrolls' were the first narratives in Japanese history, and the heroes of many folk tales have animals as their companions. — Stan Sakai

14. Hateful Things: Someone has suddenly fallen ill and one summons the exorcist. Since he is not home, one has to send messages to look for him. After one has had a long fretful wait, the exorcist finally arrives, and with a sigh of relief one asks him to start his incantations. But perhaps he has been exorcising too many evil spirits recently; for hardly has he installed himself and begun praying when his voice becomes drowsy. Oh, how hateful! — Sei Shonagon

Should misfortune visit the Court, that can only be the result of its continued abuses. If the palace is attacked, that can only be the result of misgovernment. I can hardly be held responsible for the outcome. — Eiji Yoshikawa

When I kill a man, I do it with my sword, but people like you don't use swords. You gentlemen kill with your power, with your money, and sometimes just with your words: you tell people you're doing them a favor. True, no blood flows, the man is still alive, but you've killed him all the same. I don't know whose sin is greater - yours or mine. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Is that so? He who lives in the mountains years for the city, and the city-dweller would rather live in the mountains," the Abbot chuckled, "and nothing is ever to one's liking ... — Eiji Yoshikawa

They needed a reason why a little kid would commit murder, someone or something to point the finger at, and I think they were relieved when they hit upon horror movies as the culprit. But there's no reason a child commits murder, just as there's no reason a child gets lost. What would it be - because his parents weren't watching him? That's not a reason, it's just a step in the process. — Ryu Murakami

When you're in an extreme situation you tend to avoid facing it by getting caught up in little details. Like a guy who's decided to commit suicide and boards a train only to become obsessed with whether he remembered to lock the door when he left home. — Ryu Murakami

The River Mogami has drowned
Far and deep
Beneath its surging waves
The flaming sun of summer — Matsuo Basho

As far as I have been able to understand, the Japanese seem to keep things close to the vest. Friendly but remote and polite to the point of being invisible. It is in the music, literature, film and art that the Japanese really seem to express themselves. — Henry Rollins

I felt as though I owned the whole world. And little wonder, because at no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny , as when we are busy with preparations for it. After that, there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process through which we lose our ownership of it. This is what makes travel so utterly fruitless. — Yukio Mishima

Look at all the Eastern writers who've written great Western literature. Kazuo Ishiguro. You'd never guess that The Remains of the Day or Never Let Me Go were written by a Japanese guy. But I can't think of anyone who's ever done the reverse
any Westerner who's written great Eastern literature. Well, maybe if we count Lawrence Durrell - does the Alexandria Quartet qualify as Eastern literature?"
"There is a very simple test," said Vikram. "Is it about bored, tired people having sex?"
"Yes," said the convert, surprised.
"Then it's western. — G. Willow Wilson

As you can imagine, those who had fallen this far had been so worn down by their tortures in the seven other hells that they no longer had the strength to cry out. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

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

But how shall an Occidental mind ever understand the Orient? Eight
years of study and travel have only made this, too, more evident that not
even a lifetime of devoted scholarship would suffice to initiate a Western
student into the subtle character and secret lore of the East. Every chap-
ter, every paragraph in this book will offend or amuse some patriotic or
esoteric soul: the orthodox Jew will need all his ancient patience to forgive
the pages on Yahveh; the metaphysical Hindu will mourn this superficial
scratching of Indian philosophy; and the Chinese or Japanese sage will
smile indulgently at these brief and inadequate selections from the wealth
of Far Eastern literature and thought. Some of the errors in the chapter on
Judea have been corrected by Professor Harry Wolf son of Harvard; — Will Durant

People used to say that on moonless nights Her Ladyship's broad-skirted scarlet trousers would glide eerily along the outdoor corridor, never touching the floor. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

I seem to hear thousands of voices
the voices of the common folk in the marketplace
urging me to go forward and do what must be done. More is at stake now than my life. On me turns the future of the warriors. Let's not quibble longer, lest this rare opportunity slip through my fingers. — Eiji Yoshikawa

He invited me to his apartment in the wee hours one morning and pulled out a set of children's building blocks. It seems he used to ride around and around on the Yamanote Line with them, building castles on the floor of the train. — Ryu Murakami

For clearly it is impossible to touch eternity with one hand and life with the other. — Yukio Mishima

Might it have been nothing but life itself? Life; this limitless complex sea, filled with assorted flotsam, brimming with capricious, violent, and yet eternally transparent blues and greens. — Yukio Mishima

I recall the months and years I spent as the intimate of someone whose affections have now faded like cherry blossoms scattering even before a wind blew. — Yoshida Kenko

Ah, you pitiful, pitiful creatures! Beautiful family! Nobler far than stupid men ... " he cried softly to himself. What was he doing here with his arrow? Cornering these creatures? Armor
an armor to brag about! Save his dignity before that armor-maker because of a promise? Foolish ... foolish! If the old man jeered at him, why should it matter anymore; a common suit of armor would do as well! Armor did not make a man, nor did it signify valor.
"Dumb creatures that you are, how magnificent! Sorrow, love
parental love incarnate! Were I that fox
what if Tokiko and Shigemori were trapped like this? Even the beast can rise above itself
could I as much? — Eiji Yoshikawa

Call them robbers and cutthroats
were they not amiable enough when they had sufficient to fill their bellies? Something was out of joint in a world that drove these men to steal. — Eiji Yoshikawa

Until I met you," she said, "I never realized how precious each day could be. When I was working, each day was over before I knew it, and then a week just flew by, and then a whole year ... What have I been doing all this time? Why didn't I meet you before? If I had to choose a whole year in the past, or a day with you-I'd choose a day with you ... — Shuichi Yoshida

Unhappiness. There are all kinds of unhappy people in the world. I suppose it would be no exaggeration to say that the world is composed entirely of unhappy people. But those people can fight their unhappiness with society fairly and squarly, and society for its part easily understands and sympathizes with such struggles. My unhappiness stemmed entirely from my own vices, and I had no way of fighting anybody. — Osamu Dazai

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

I am an admirer of haiku, and I'm a great admirer of Japanese literature in general. — Richard Flanagan

Die? Then so be it. — Eiji Yoshikawa

The Winter Woman is as wild as a blizzard, as fresh as new snow. While some see her as cold, she has a fiery heart under that ice-queen exterior. She likes the stark simplicity of Japanese art and the daring complexity of Russian literature. She prefers sharp to flowing lines, brooding to pouting, and rock and roll to country and western. Her drink is vodka, her car is German, her analgesic is Advil. The Winter Woman likes her men weak and her coffee strong. She is prone to anemia, hysteria, and suicide. — Christopher Moore

Young people get the foolish idea that what is new for them must be new for everybody else too. No matter how unconventional they get, they're just repeating what others before them have done. — Yukio Mishima

Held in the custody of childhood is a locked chest; the adolescent, by one means or another, tries to open it. The chest is opened: inside, there is nothing. So he reaches a conclusion: the treasure chest is always like this, empty. From this point on, he gives priority to this assumption of his rather than to his reality. In other words, he is now a "grown-up." Yet was the chest really empty? Wasn't there something vital, something invisible to the eye, that got away at the very moment it was opened? — Yukio Mishima

Why can't people get along without criticizing one another?" Urashima shakes
his head as he ponders this rudimentary question. "Never have the bush clover
blooming on the beach, nor the little crabs who skitter o'er the sand, nor the wild
geese resting their wings in yonder cove found fault with me. Would that human
beings too were thus! Each individual has his own way of living. Can we not learn
to respect one another's chosen way? One makes every effort to live in a dignified
and proper manner, without harming anyone else, yet people will carp and cavil
and try to tear one down. It's most vexing. — Osamu Dazai

The pale whiteness of her upturned face as she choked on the smoke; the tangled length of her hair as she tried to shake the flames from it; the beauty of her cherry-blossom robe as it burst into flame: it was all so cruel, so terrible! — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese. — Lafcadio Hearn

I've translated a lot of American literature into Japanese, and I think that what makes a good translator is, above all, a feel for language and also a great affection for the work you're translating. If one of those elements is missing the translation won't be worth much. — Haruki Murakami

... In the very simplicity of her desire to punish herself appeared egoism in its purest form. Never before had this woman who seemed to think only of herself experienced an egoism so immaculate. — Yukio Mishima

I could have sworn that the man's eyes were no longer watching his daughter dying in agony, that instead the gorgeous colors of flames and the sight of a woman suffering in them were giving him joy beyond measure. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Dr. Y. Hiraiwa, professor of Hiroshima University of Literature and Science, and one of my church members, was buried by the bomb under the two storied house with his son, a student of Tokyo University. Both of them could not move an inch under tremendously heavy pressure. And the house already caught fire. His son said, 'Father, we can do nothing except make our mind up to consecrate our lives for the country. Let us give Banzai to our Emperor.' Then the father followed after his son, 'Tenno-heika, Banzai, Banzai, Banzai!' . . . In thinking of their experience of that time Dr. Hiraiwa repeated, 'What a fortunate that we are Japanese! It was my first time I ever tasted such a beautiful spirit when I decided to die for our Emperor. — John Hersey

He felt so lost, he said later, that the familiar studio felt like a haunted valley deep in the mountains, with the smell of rotting leaves, the spray of a waterfall, the sour fumes of fruit stashed away by a monkey; even the dim glow of the master's oil lamp on its tripod looked to him like misty moonlight in the hills. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Not only must a warrior be strong with his bow, but he must have a heart full of pity for all living creatures. — Eiji Yoshikawa

Yes, sir. Certainly, it was I who found the body. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

I've been missing Japanese literature so much of late. — Utada Hikaru

I didn't read so much Japanese literature. Because my father was a teacher of Japanese literature, I just wanted to do something else. — Haruki Murakami