542 Quotes by Japanese authors

Japanese sayings and literature speak in a quiet register, where a pause can hold more weight than a proclamation. Themes of impermanence, restraint, and renewal surface through seasons, simple objects, and the play of light and shadow. Insights arrive like a tea’s aftertaste: modest, lingering, precise. There is solace in imperfection, courage in endurance, and harmony found between people and place. Imagery of rain on stone, the last plum blossom, a repaired bowl; a language of care that favors suggestion over display.

See the complete list of authors from Japan

"Certainly my only interest is not in Celtic music"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

Nobuo Uematsu

"I always begin to compose the melody first"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

Nobuo Uematsu

"However in countries outside of Japan I think game music is still a potential growth market that has not yet developed to the extent that we are seeing in Japan"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

Nobuo Uematsu

"For over ten years or so game music has developed into a very large market"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

Nobuo Uematsu

"And as far as the Disney Concert hall is concerned, it is a wonderful modern structure and I am extremely honored that I had this opportunity to have a concert here"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

Nobuo Uematsu

"However now we can create a sound that can truly startle someone and in terms of sound effects I think the environment that we are in now has improved dramatically"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

Nobuo Uematsu

"When you talk about the Final Fantasy series, the series started selling better after 7, and that was the base idea for the center of the set list for the LA concert"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

Nobuo Uematsu

"So I don't really have a clear plan, in terms of music, as to where I want to head in the future"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

Nobuo Uematsu

"I have been interested in Irish traditional music for the past few years"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

Nobuo Uematsu

"Tone has the living soul"

Shinichi Suzuki, Musician

Shinichi Suzuki

"Children learn to smile from their parents"

Shinichi Suzuki, Musician

Shinichi Suzuki

"Art expresses man"

Shinichi Suzuki, Musician

Shinichi Suzuki

"What is man's ultimate direction in life? It is to look for love, truth, virtue, and beauty"

Shinichi Suzuki, Musician

Shinichi Suzuki

"Well, what I'm doing is really clothing. I'm not doing sculpture"

Issey Miyake, Designer

Issey Miyake

"I sent 200, 300 of the clothes that I had made, and the dancers chose what they liked"

Issey Miyake, Designer

Issey Miyake

"Of course there are many ways we can reuse something. We can dye it. We can cut it. We can change the buttons. Those are other ways to make it alive. But this is a new step to use anything - hats, socks, shirts. It's the first step in the process"

Issey Miyake, Designer

Issey Miyake

"By the way, Marilyn Monroe was a size 14"

Issey Miyake, Designer

Issey Miyake

"I would like my architecture to inspire people to use their own resources, to move into the future"

Tadao Ando, Architect

Tadao Ando

"You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see"

Tadao Ando, Architect

Tadao Ando

"But in Japan, there's nothing like that, since the temple is made of wood. The divine spirit inside the building is eternal, so the enclosure doesn't have to be"

Tadao Ando, Architect

Tadao Ando

"The moon is brighter since the barn burned"

Matsuo Basho, Poet

"In my opinion, further consideration of those views will help us find a way out of the current impasse, and reveal to us the kinds of buildings and cities required by the informational society"

Kenzo Tange, Architect

"There is fear as to whether Japan, reduced to such a predicament, could ever manage to pay reparations to certain designated Allied Powers without shifting the burden upon the other Allied Powers"

Shigeru Yoshida, Politician

"We have listened here to the delegates who have recalled the terrible human suffering, and the great material destruction of the late war in the Pacific. It is with feelings of sorrow that we recall the part played in that catastrophic human experience by the old Japan"

Shigeru Yoshida, Politician

"Music should be able to invoke the natural emotions in all human beings. Music is not notes fixed on apiece of paper"

Toru Takemitsu, Composer

Toru Takemitsu

"With love and patience, nothing is impossible"

Daisaku Ikeda, Writer

Daisaku Ikeda

"Find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and dark which that thing provides"

Junichiro Tanizaki, Author

"No matter how deep a study you make. What you really have to rely on is your own intuition and when it comes down to it, you really don't know what's going to happen until you do it"

Konosuke Matsushita, Businessman

"I read and watch movies. I can't go to the movie theater much anymore, though, because I get recognized. It's worse sometimes if I wear a costume and try not to get recognized. I watch most of my films on airplanes"

Ayumi Hamasaki, Musician

"The Japanese keenly learned from Western civilisation in a bid to modernize and preserve the nation"

Akihito, Statesman

"Living in Europe, I was surprised to find out just how little everyone knows about Japan"

Hidetoshi Nakata, Athlete

"Music exists for the purpose of growing an admirable heart"

Shinichi Suzuki, Musician

Shinichi Suzuki

"From the beginning I thought about working with the body in movement, the space between the body and clothes. I wanted the clothes to move when people moved. The clothes are also for people to dance or laugh"

Issey Miyake, Designer

Issey Miyake

"The purpose - where I start - is the idea of use. It is not recycling, it's reuse"

Issey Miyake, Designer

Issey Miyake

"I very much like dance and dancers"

Issey Miyake, Designer

Issey Miyake

"If you give people nothingness, they can ponder what can be achieved from that nothingness"

Tadao Ando, Architect

Tadao Ando

"The level of detail and craft is something that's inscribed within the original design concept. And so when I begin to draw, I know what kind of detailing I want the building to have"

Tadao Ando, Architect

Tadao Ando

"My hand is the extension of the thinking process - the creative process"

Tadao Ando, Architect

Tadao Ando

"When I draw something, the brain and the hands work together"

Tadao Ando, Architect

Tadao Ando

"There is a role and function for beauty in our time"

Tadao Ando, Architect

Tadao Ando

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