“規律なくして成長なし。”
Source: Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect
“In my dream, I was an android maid living in a city in the not-so- distant future. In that neighbourhood, all the buildings were made of used books.”
Source: Days at the Morisaki Bookshop
“Those pearl-white flowers swayed their heads by the feet of Lord Shakyamuni; and from their golden centres wafted unceasingly a wondrous fragrance surpassing all description. It must have been noon in Paradise.”
Source: Murder in the Age of Enlightenment: Essential Stories
“But surely the will to create was a form of the will to live...?”
Source: Akutagawa Ryunosuke Short Story Selection vol.1 [mikan +1]
“But every time my thoughts reached this point, every time, my desire to speak would vanish. And so we remained precisely as we were, making no waves, at a standstill.”
Source: Asleep
“She does not love easily, but when she does, I know it will not be gentle—it will be the kind of love that leaves marks on the soul.”
Source: Heart Beating Among The Thorns: Courage To Begin Again
“When crossing a river in bright moonlight, I love to see the water scatter in showers of crystal beneath the oxen's feet.”
Source: The pillow book
“Listen kiddo, by the time you grow up you'll have collected a whole lot of this 'dirt of life' stuff, right, you won't know where it's coming from but it'll pile up, and clothes and pearls won't look as beautiful to you as they do now -- that's for sure. The problem is that dirt, see? You can't ever settle down in one place, you've got to live like you're always, always staring way off into the distance.”
Source: Asleep
“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.”
Source: Thirst for love
“The flowing river
never stops
and yet the water
never stays the same.
Foam floats
upon the pools,
scattering, re-forming,
never lingering long.
So it is with man
and all his dwelling places
here on earth”
Source: Hojoki: Visions of a Torn World