26 quotes found
“The entire area - some 300 square kilometers - is sacred. There are shrines and temples dotted about the slopes, but they merely confirm the sanctity of the land. It is not in the shrines and templ...”
“Above a certain size and level of prosperity, regional cities in Japan look alike. To discover what makes each one different, one has to sample the food and the sake, and stay long enough to see th...”
“Confounding though it seems, to acknowledge our dilemma, that we are no different from any animal coexisting on this planet, ironic really when through the ages, we have struggled with such pretens...”
“Are we not clouded by our own self-interest, veiled by our misunderstandings, corrupted by the misinformation feeding the 'motherboard'.our brain?”
“The games we have become familiar, and striven to compete. Yet the subtlety of gaining position is harder to achieve. We can never fully embrace that moment of success...from the outset it is a mal...”
“Immobilized in marriage, since long ago, she was taken as rightful property under wedlock. As a side note, I am urged to comment, the curious nature of these terms property and wed-lock; as if doom...”
“And with this frailty of mind, society in general acts like the petulant child in the sandbox, relational aggression occasionally frothing above the surface.”
“When [Japanese] women encouraged men to bask in public glory, it reminded me of the way you would indulge a child with a sweet-bean treat.”
“In direct confrontation, the [Japanese] women might yield like blades of grass -- and spring back just as quickly. One of them compared this flexibility to the Vietcong guerrillas”
“Tokyo is a very safe city. At night it becomes quiet the way New York never does.”
“The only other white people we saw during the three days we stayed there were a German couple intent on taking pictures of their stuffed sheep in a variety of locations around the world.”
“I am a lonely man,' Sensei said. 'And so I am glad that you come to see me. But I am also a melancholy man, and so I asked you why you should wish to visit me so often.”
“Kids with roofs and hot food have better things to do than play survival of the thuggiest.”
“Cassiopeia? She was a queen long ago, in a different part of the world. The stories say she was very beautiful, but very proud. Too proud. She smack-talked some goddesses and got herself stuck up t...”
“When you're in an extreme situation you tend to avoid facing it by getting caught up in little details. Like a guy who's decided to commit suicide and boards a train only to become obsessed with wh...”
“It would seem that the more irresponsible and crafty one is, the more likely one is to have a talent for storytelling.”
“This may seem labouring the obvious, but in Japan one meets intelligent people who claim that logic is something invented in the West to allow Westerners to win discussions. Indeed, the belief is w...”
“If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.”
“The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.”
“Psychologically speaking (Ill only wheel out the amateur psychology just this once, so bear with me), encounters that call up strong physical disgust or revulsion are often in fact projections of o...”
