Japan Quotes

This may seem labouring the obvious, but in Japan one meets intelligent people who claim that ‘logic’ is something invented in the West to allow Westerners to win discussions. Indeed, the belief is widespread that the Japanese can as happily do without logic now as they supposedly have for centuries past.

~ Karel Van Wolferen

If formality and courtesy take over the feelings . . . how silly and meaningless these things could become. And despite all this, I still take part in it!

~ Fumio Obata

One warm morning in July, a ghost came to our breakfast table.

~ Holly Thompson

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

I was living for one thing only, and that was to confirm my own lack of feeling.

~ Haruki Murakami

I've never really wanted to go to Japan. Simply because I don’t like eating fish. And I know that's very popular out there in Africa.

~ Britney Spears

In the pre-war era when itinerant home-remedy salesmen still wandered the country, they had a traditional patter for selling a potion that was supposed to be particularly effective in treating burns and cuts. A toad with four legs in front and six behind would be placed in a box with mirrors lining the four walls. The toad, amazed at its own appearance from every angle, would break into an oily sweat. This sweat would be collected and simmered for 3,721 days while being stirred with a willow branch. The result was the marvelous potion.When writing about myself, I feel something like that toad in the box.

~ Akira Kurosawa

The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.

~ Kakuzō Okakura

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

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

Insta-love isn’t something that happens in real life. Ithappens in the books I read, but not in the world I live. Though herestands this beautiful, sexy, funny, sweet and amazing guy who hasdone everything short of professing love at first sight to me and I’mstill standing here like a pair of lungs suffocating, needing him inorder to breathe.

~ Kathryn Perez

While the characters drive the epic story of Robotech, it’s the robotic mecha that capture the imagination.

~ Tommy Yune

Kon’s films present a fractured, multifaceted world in which everyone has their own different reality.

~ Andrew Osmond

Out of the ugliness of the ironworks lepers will eat, children will be born, their parents will grow old.

~ Helen Mccarthy

For the casual viewer, Kurosawa’s films can be an exercise in endurance.

~ Jerry White

Ruth was a novelist, and novelists, Oliver asserted, should have cats and books.

~ Ruth Ozeki

In Paris the cashiers sit rather than stand. They run your goods over a scanner, tally up the price, and then ask you for exact change. The story they give is that there aren't enough euros to go around. The entire EU is short on coins.And I say, Really? because there are plenty of them in Germany. I'm never asked for exact change in Spain or Holland or Italy, so I think the real problem lies with the Parisian cashiers, who are, in a word, lazy. Here in Tokyo they're not just hard working but almost violently cheerful. Down at the Peacock, the change flows like tap water. The women behind the registers bow to you, and I don't mean that they lower their heads a little, the way you might if passing someone on the street. These cashiers press their hands together and bend from the waist. Then they say what sounds to me like We, the people of this store, worship you as we might a god.

~ David Sedaris

Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts.

~ Gordon Sinclair

If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.

~ Alan Perlis

I loved cowboy films and TV series, and I learned bits of English from them. My favorite was 'Laramie', with Robert Fuller and John Smith. I used to watch 'The Lone Ranger', which had been famous in Japan as well. I idolized these cowboys.

~ Kazuo Ishiguro

In Japan, I was immensely impressed by the politeness, industrious nature and conscientiousness of the Japanese people.

~ J. Paul Getty

The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe.

~ Arthur Erickson

I had actually been on tour in Japan and I had my own world tour that I was doing. I was used to doing a show for an hour, so I was always learning choreography.

~ Christina Milian

From Japan to Thailand, I keep discovering amazing talent, cuisine and food markets.

~ Daniel Boulud

In fact, the Senkaku Islands are... inherent territory of Japan that is recognized in our history and also by international law.

~ Naoto Kan

Significant anniversaries are solemnly commemorated - Japan's attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, for example.

~ Noam Chomsky

In Japan, usually, once you become prime minister, you do not have a second chance.

~ Shinzo Abe

I served at the Pentagon and at Fort Leavenworth - my job was video cameraman, and that allowed me to travel to places like Korea, Japan, Alaska, Germany and the Netherlands.

~ Chad Coleman

A lot of my nonfiction is very strong environmental stories - I was the first guy to write about the dolphin killings in Japan.

~ Peter Heller