Quotes by Japanese authors

See the complete list of authors from Japan

Chiaki Kuriyama

"Obviously, a skirt does present certain problems that I had to be aware of. But when it came to the shoot and we were rolling, I didn't really pay it any attention. It wasn't too bad"

Chiaki Kuriyama, Actress

Chiaki Kuriyama

"I think probably like seeing women fight because we're generally not thought to be strong, especially in the case of this movie"

Chiaki Kuriyama, Actress

Chiaki Kuriyama

"It was pretty much the way that it was when I first read it, although one exception would be that some ideas that I had were also incorporated into the script"

Chiaki Kuriyama, Actress

"Architects today tend to depreciate themselves, to regard themselves as no more than just ordinary citizens without the power to reform the future"

Kenzo Tange, Architect

Chiaki Kuriyama

"I certainly look at them very differently now, and enjoy Jackie Chan movies and movies like that"

Chiaki Kuriyama, Actress

Chiaki Kuriyama

"A movie of mine is going to be released in Japan next year. I play a waitress who's a really regular girl in this movie. The English title isn't decided yet, but in Japanese it's I'll Get on the A Train Sometime"

Chiaki Kuriyama, Actress

"Paradoxically, the people and state of Japan living on such moral props were not innocent but had been stained by their own past history of invading other Asian countries"

Kenzaburo Oe, Writer

"In the recent years there have been criticisms levelled against Japan suggesting that she should offer more military forces to the United Nations forces and thereby play a more active role in the keeping and restoration of peace in various parts of the world"

Kenzaburo Oe, Writer

Chiaki Kuriyama

"I think the biggest difficulty is that when I'm here in America, there's a necessity of using English, so I really have a great sense of really wanting to learn, but unfortunately when I head back to Japan, the necessity vanishes and so does my enthusiasm about learning"

Chiaki Kuriyama, Actress

Chiaki Kuriyama

"I didn't understand the American fascination with the Japanese schoolgirl. No, I don't think I can, really"

Chiaki Kuriyama, Actress

"Technological considerations are of great importance to architecture and cities in the informational society"

Kenzo Tange, Architect

"I feel however, that we architects have a special duty and mission... (to contribute) to the socio-cultural development of architecture and urban planning"

Kenzo Tange, Architect

"The way Japan had tried to build up a modern state modelled on the West was cataclysmic"

Kenzaburo Oe, Writer

"When I got to 40 or so... I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of which I had thought about, some of which I had sort of stumbled on, and many that I had no control over whatsoever"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"If you look at my last songs and first short stories, there is a real connection between them"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"I couldn't speak Japanese very well, passport regulations were changing, I felt British, and my future was in Britain. And it would also make me eligible for literary awards. But I still think I'm regarded as one of their own in Japan"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"There are things I am more interested in than the clone thing. How are they trying to find their place in the world and make sense of their lives? To what extent can they transcend their fate? As time starts to run out, what are the things that really matter?"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"I felt slightly superior to student politics, for instance. I had no reason to think this, but I thought of myself as slightly more seasoned. I became quite cynical talking to my student friends"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"I do feel part of that generation of people who were rather idealistic in the '70s and became disillusioned in the '80s. Not just about social services issues, but the world"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"The world is crawling with authors touring now. They're like performance artists"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"Our family arrived in England in 1960. At that time I thought the war was ancient history. But if I think of 15 years ago from now, that's 1990, and that seems like yesterday to me"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"Now when I look back to the Guildford of that time, it seems far more exotic to me than Nagasaki"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"I was a little concerned that a lot of people thought I wrote Merchant Ivory movies. I also thought if I was ever going to write something strange and difficult, that was the time"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"When you become a parent, or a teacher, you turn into a manager of this whole system. You become the person controlling the bubble of innocence around a child, regulating it"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"There's a practical problem about time and energy, and a more subtle problem of what it does to a writer's head, to continually analyze why they write, where it all comes from, where it's going to"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"People were incredibly kind to our family and went out of their way to help"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"People aren't quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They're not quite sure what is being recommended, what literary values it stands for, because every year it stands for something different"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

"As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened"

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

Kenji Miyazawa

"I will always be someone who is trying to become better"

Kenji Miyazawa, Poet

Kenji Miyazawa

"Not just the rich and the strong, but everyone must share happiness equally"

Kenji Miyazawa, Poet

Kenji Miyazawa

"To be of the earth is to know the restlessness of being a seed the darkness of being planted the struggle toward the light the pain of growth into the light the joy of bursting and bearing fruit the love of being food for someone the scattering of your seeds the decay of the seasons the mystery of death and the miracle of birth"

Kenji Miyazawa, Poet

Kenji Miyazawa

"If you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark, that is all you will ever see"

Kenji Miyazawa, Poet

"Architecture is basically a container of something. I hope they will enjoy not so much the teacup, but the tea"

Yoshio Taniguchi, Architect

"Kids just don't read any more. They spend much more time with video games. It's just hard to get kids to read anything. Book sales have dropped dramatically, too. I think 90% of the books are bought only by 5% of the US population"

Stan Sakai, Cartoonist

"I make my own limits which are drawn according to my own taste"

Stan Sakai, Cartoonist

"I think I can make an entirely new game experience, and if I can't do it, some other game designer will"

Shigeru Miyamoto, Designer

"The way I work, typically, I do everything at the very last minute. Even if I was given two months, I'd do it in the last three days"

Ayumi Hamasaki, Musician

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