Tanizaki X Quotes & Sayings

It's odd, but even when I am in pain I have a sexual urge. Perhaps especially when I am in pain I have a sexual urge. Or should I say that I am more attracted, more fascinated by women who cause me pain? — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Can it be, I wondered, that life without her is so dull as this? — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

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

[ ... ] we can't make a decision between being sad for a little while and being wretched for the rest of our lives. Or rather we've made the decision and have trouble finding the courage to carry it through. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

The ancients waited for cherry blossoms, grieved when they were gone, and lamented their passing in countless poems. How very ordinary the poems had seemed to Sachiko when she read them as a girl, but now she knew, as well as one could know, that grieving over fallen cherry blossoms was more than a fad or convention. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

The heart of mine is only one, it cannot be known by anybody but myself. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Whenever I sit with a bowl of soup before me, listening to the murmur that penetrates like the distant song of an insect, lost in contemplation of the flavours to come, I feel as if I were being drawn into a trance — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

If I've changed, I've changed."
"Have you really changed, or are you only making a show?"
"Making a show?"
"Yes."
" ... I don't really know. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

The older we get the more we seem to think that everything was better in the past. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Children retain a great deal, and when they grow up they start going over things and rejudging them from a grownup's point of view. This must have been this way, and that was that way, they say. That's why you have to be careful with children - some day they grow up. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

After looking at myself in the mirror, I looked at Satsuko. I could not believe that we were creatures of the same species. The uglier the face in the mirror, the more extraordinarily beautiful Satsuko seemed. If that ugly face were only uglier, I thought regretfully, Satsuko would look even more beautiful. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

New York is perfect for Tanizaki because it's filled with so many dark spaces. — Cary Fukunaga

I wanted to boast to everyone,"This woman is mine. Take a look at my treasure. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Osaka: Ah got a question sensei...

Ms Yukari Tanizaki: Wh-what?

Osaka: It true they wear shoes in the house in America?

Tanikaze: That's what I hear.

Osaka: But then...

...wh-what if you stepped in dog poo outside... ... And you never noticed? And then... — Kiyohiko Azuma

Her eyes, nose, hands, feet ... Each part was a supreme delicacy, and I was insatiable. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

If I know from the start that I'm going to be alone, I'm not lonely. It doesn't bother me. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

And isn't it better really to leave things only hinted at? — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

If indeed "elegance is frigid," it can as well be described as filthy. There is no denying, at any rate, that among the elements of the elegance in which we take such delight is a measure of the unclean, the unsanitary. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

We Orientals find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and darkness which that thing provides. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

There are those who hold that to quibble over matters of taste in the basic necessities of life is an extravagance — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

But once you start doubting,it's hard to know what to believe. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

With lacquerware there is an extra beauty in that moment between removing the lid and lifting the bowl to the mouth, when one gazes at the still, silent liquid in the dark depths of the bowl, its colour hardly differing from that of the bowl itself. What lies within the darkness one cannot distinguish, but the palm senses the gentle movements of the liquid, vapour rises from within, forming droplets on the rim, and the fragrance carried upon the vapour brings a delicate anticipation ... a moment of mystery, it might almost be called, a moment of trance. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Perhaps I am already tired of life - I feel as if it makes no difference when I die. The other day at the Toranomon Hospital when they told me it might be cancer, my wife and Miss Sasaki seemed to turn pale, but I was quite calm. It was surprising that I could be calm even at such a moment. I almost felt relieved, to think that my long, long life was finally coming to an end. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

When I was at the University I knew a law student named Yamada Uruu. Later he worked for the Osaka Municipal Office; he's been dead for years. This man's father was an old-time lawyer, or "advocate," who in early Meiji defended the notorious murderess Takahashi Oden. It seems he often talked to his son about Oden's beauty. Apparently he would corner him and go on and on about her, as if deeply moved. "You might call her alluring, or bewitching," he would say. "I've never known such a fascinating woman, she's a real vampire. When I saw her I thought I wouldn't mind dying at the hands of a woman like that!"

Since I have no particular reason to keep on living, sometimes I think I would be happier if a woman like Oden turned up to kill me. Rather than endure the pain of these half-dead arms and legs of mine, maybe I could get it over and at the same time see how it feels to be brutally murdered. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

There are those who say that when civilization progresses a bit further transportation facilities will move into the skies and under the ground, and that our streets will again be quiet, but I know perfectly well that when that day comes some new device for torturing the old will be invented. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

For someone who writes as slowly as I do, each installment is a full day's work. Newspaper novels are painful ... Whether I like what I'm writing or not, whether I'm feeling inspired or not, I have to write an installment every day. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

We delight in the mere sight of the delicate glow of fading rays clinging to the surface of a dusky wall, there to live out what little life remains to them. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and dark which that thing provides. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki