9 Quotes by Takashi Matsuoka

Never like anybody you can’t trust, Cruz said. You might think you’re a smart boy, you can like somebody and still keep your eyes open. But there’s something about liking that dismays your attention, I don’t know what it is. You allow yourself to like somebody you don’t trust, and one night soon enough, you’ll wake up to find an ax cleaved in the back of your skull, and you’ll have your own foolish liking to thank for it.

When we let ourselves see only what we expect to see,” Genji said, “we view the contents of our own minds and miss what is truly before us.

Lack of fear is not the mark of courage. It is the mark of idiocy. Courage is knowing fear and overcoming it.

It is important to know when to delegate authority.

Crisis changes people,” Genji said, filling Heiko’s cup in turn. “If they are fortunate, crisis shows them what truly matters.

The sages say happiness and sorrow are one. Is this because in finding the first, we also find the second?

All true communication, even between two people speaking the same language, requires translation,” Genji said. “In the end, our hearts must hear what cannot be spoken.

How fragile life was, she thought, how unpredictable. We flatter ourselves, thinking we are actors on a stage, geniuses who write our own plays, extemporize our words, and shift major plot lines and the most subtle of nuances at our every whim. Perhaps wooden Bunraku puppets feel the same way. They do not notice the puppeteers who guide their every move.

Words can damage. Silence can heal. Knowing when to speak and when not to speak is the wisdom of sages. Knowledge can hinder. Ignorance can liberate. Knowing when to know and when not to know is the wisdom of prophets. Unimpeded by words, silence, knowledge, or ignorance, a fluent blade cuts cleanly. This is the wisdom of warriors.