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Japanese Literature Quotes

Browse 225 quotes about Japanese Literature.

Japanese Literature Quotes

“According to The History of the Body, edited by Corbin, Courtine, and Vigarello, the "criminalization of the gaze" that took hold around the dawn of the twentieth century had led to the decline of the freak show, which was subsequently replaced in popularity by the Monsters of Hollywood. Now, with costumes serving as an ethical cushion, people could enjoy ogling deformity without guilt or reserve.”

DisabilitySocial IssuesDisabledJapanese LiteratureTranslationJapanese CultureDisability Rights
Book:Hunchback
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“At twenty, he had been passionately certain: there's just one thing I'm destined for and that's glory; that's right, glory! He had no idea what kind of glory he wanted, or what kind he was suited for. He knew only that in the depths of the world's darkness was a point of light which had been provided for him alone and would draw near some day to irradiate him and no other.”

Japanese Literature
Book:The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea
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“He did not why she pulled out the hair of the dead. Accordingly, he did not know whether her case was to be put down as good or bad. But in his eyes, pulling out the hair of the dead in the Rashomon on this stormy night was an unpardonable crime. Of course it never entered his mind that a little while ago he had though of becoming a thief”

HypocrisyContradictionJapanese LiteratureRashomonRyunosuke Akutagawa
Book:Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories
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“He did not know why she pulled out the hair of the dead. Accordingly, he did not know whether her case was to be put down as good or bad. But in his eyes, pulling out the hair of the dead in the Rashomon on this stormy night was an unpardonable crime. Of course it never entered his mind that a little while ago he had though of becoming a thief”

Social JusticeHypocrisyContradictionJapanese LiteratureMoral SuperiorityRyunosuke Akutagawa
Book:Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories
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“On the tray were two plates of a yellowish curry. "Today's menu is shirobanba. Monday is shirobanba day." "Curry always perks me up." Minami nodded. "What do you mean by shirobanba?" Otoha asked. "You don't know?" Kinoshita asked. "You haven't read it? It's from Yasushi Inoue's novel Shirobanba. It's a re-creation of the curry an old woman in the story cooks. Shirobanba, by the way, are the so-called snow bugs, teeny tiny insects that have a white puff on their wings that looks like cotton. They look like little flakes of snow.”

InspiredSnowJapanese LiteratureFleasCurry
Book:Dinner at the Night Library
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“Life is one revelation after another. Things don't always go to plan, no matter what your circumstances. But the flip side is all the unexpected, wonderful things that you could never have imagined happening. Ultimately it's all for the best that many things don't turn out the way we hoped. Try not to think of upset plans or schedules as personal failures or bad luck. If you can do that, you can change your own self and your life overall.”

FictionJapanJapanese Literature
Book:What You Are Looking for Is in the Library
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“So far as Subaru knew, the person best suited for a moonlit sky was without a doubt Emilia. Her silver hair twinkled and glimmered in a way the sun’s rays never did. Emilia’s beauty was like fleeting moonlight. That’s why Subaru hoped to one day become a star that nestled up to the moon.”

Japanese LiteratureEnglishLight Novel
Book:Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 16 [Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu 16]
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“It occurs to me that in the year Shunkin's picture was taken—when she was thirty-six—Sasuke himself became blind; the last time he saw her she must have looked rather like this. Was the picture of her which he carried in his memory in old age as faded as this photograph? Or did his imagination make up for a gradually failing memory? Did he create an image of another lovely woman, of one altogether different from the woman in the photograph?”

Short StoriesJapanese LiteratureHoward HibbettProse ArtSeven Japanese Tales
Author:Junichirô Tanizaki
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