508 Quotes About Japan

Bushidō is about experiencing life in every breath. Seeing life in the simplest of things. There is beauty and honor in that.

a flying squirrel sits chewing on a bird withered field(Yosa Buson`s farewell haiku)

Just beyond the gate,a neat yellow hole—someone pissed in the snow

Men know how to read printed books; they do not know how to read the unprinted ones. They can play on a stringed harp, but not on a stringless one. Applying themselves to the superficial instead of the profound, how should they understand music or poetry?From the Saikontan, by Kojisei (circa 1600) cited in Haiku by Robert Blyth, circa 1947 Tokyo, p. 73.

I had never thought of haiku, or any kind of poetry for that matter, as a social activity.

While he mused on the effect of the flowing sands, he was seized from time to time by hallucinations in which he himself began to move with the flow.

Living right in the heart of Tokyo itself is quite like living in the mountains – in the midst of so many people, one hardly sees anyone.

I bow my head submissively and see that my chest is heaving, already dotted with the telltale flush of sexual arousal.

If you are a Westerner and you spend enough time in Japan—and you speak Japanese—you will eventually be told that you cannot truly understand the Japanese. Only the Japanese can understand themselves.