Japanese Novelist Quotes

Haruki Murakami

Natsume Sōseki

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Eiji Yoshikawa

Fumiko Enchi

Cynthia Kadohata

If, as the dowager had said, we are nothing but gene carriers, why do so many of us have to lead such strangely shaped lives? Wouldn't our genetic purpose-to transmit DNA-be served just as well if we lived simple lives, not bothering our heads with a lot of extraneous thoughts, devoted entirely to preserving life and procreating? Did it benefit the genes in any way for us to lead such intricately warped, even bizarre, lives?

Haruki Murakami

Intimacy between stepchildren and stepparents is indeed proverbially difficult.

Murasaki Shikibu

The top has no limits. We can keep on climbing. That's what people do.

Which will you take, the high road or the low road?" "Which one is longer?" "They're both short.

Yasutaka Tsutsui

If a man wanted to put the entire universe in his breast, he couldn't do it with his chest stuck out.

If people can't stand being alone, they have no choice but to die

The truly correct proof is one that strikes a harmonious balance between strength and flexibility. There are plenty of proofs that are technically correct but are messy and inelegant or counterintuitive. But it's not something you can put into words - explaining why a formula is beautiful is like trying to explain why the stars are beautiful.

I know a lot about when I was a little girl, because my sister used to keep a diary. Today I keep her diary in a drawer next to by bed. I like to see how her memories were the same as mine, but also different.

Cynthia Kadohata

While one may lose much because of avarice, nothing was ever accomplished by abstinence.

Sometimes, all you had to do was exist in order to be someone's saviour.

Keigo Higashino

Happiness—a small-scale, endearing, harmonious happiness—surely dwelt here beneath the low-powered lamps in the tiny rooms of these houses. A small-scale happiness and a modest harmony: let a man cry out, let him rage, let him howl with grief with all the power of which he was capable, what more than these could he ever hope to gain in this life?

Never does one so constantly see so many different things as when peering from a small window.

Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maples, singing songs, drinking wine and diverting ourselves in just floating, floating; caring not a whit for the poverty staring us in the face, refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current: this is what we call ukiyo.-

No matter how accomplished one might be in any branch of learning or art, one would have to be condemned to hell, if on where not endowed with th five cardinal virtues of Confucius-benevolence, justice, courtesy, wisdom and fidelity

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

I don't like ordinary girls. But a girl who would kill a guy to make him hers and then kiss his still-warm lips... a girl like Oscar Wilde's Salome They drive me crazy. Like Kiyohime turning into a snake to chase her man or the grocery girl Oshichi who set fire to a building just to see hers one more time. I want to be loved like that be obsessed over be hated.

London is a city that offers all kinds of temptations, and whenever I go for a walk I discover things that I would like to bring back as souvenirs. But my resources are very limited. I cannot buy anything, and I make a point of taking my walks a good distance from these riches.

Natsume Sōseki