Junichiro Tanizaki Quotes

• 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

  Beauty, Dark, Light

  134 Copy quote

• Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Shadow, Would Be

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• The heart of mine is only one, it cannot be known by anybody but myself.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Heart, Mines, Known

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• And isn't it better really to leave things only hinted at?

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Junichiro Tanizaki (2011). “Some Prefer Nettles”, p.119, Tuttle Publishing

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• The older we get the more we seem to think that everything was better in the past.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Past, Thinking, Seems

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• We delight in the mere sight of the delicate glow of fading rays clinging to the surface of a dusky wall, there to live out what little life remains to them.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Wall, Sight, Delight

  13 Copy quote

• Yet for better or worse we love things that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the colors and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Past, Color, Weather

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• I would call back at least for literature this world of shadows we are losing. In the mansion called literature I would have the eaves deep and the walls dark, I would push back into the shadows the things that come forward too clearly, I would strip away the useless decoration. I do not ask that this be done everywhere, but perhaps we may be allowed at least one mansion where we can turn off the electric lights and see what it is like without them.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Wall, Dark, Light

  17 Copy quote

• With lacquerware there is an extra beauty in that moment between removing the lid and lifting the bowl to the mouth, when one gazes at the still, silent liquid in the dark depths of the bowl, its colour hardly differing from that of the bowl itself. What lies within the darkness one cannot distinguish, but the palm senses the gentle movements of the liquid, vapour rises from within, forming droplets on the rim, and the fragrance carried upon the vapour brings a delicate anticipation ... a moment of mystery, it might almost be called, a moment of trance.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Lying, Dark, Mouths

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• For a woman who lived in the dark it was enough if she had a faint, white face -a full body was unnecessary.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Dark, White, Body

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• There are those who say that when civilization progresses a bit further transportation facilities will move into the skies and under the ground, and that our streets will again be quiet, but I know perfectly well that when that day comes some new device for torturing the old will be invented.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Moving, Sky, Civilization

  12 Copy quote

• Each worm to his taste;
  some prefer to eat nettles.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Taste, Nettles, Worms

  Junichiro Tanizaki (2011). “Some Prefer Nettles”, p.4, Tuttle Publishing

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• The ancients waited for cherry blossoms, grieved when they were gone, and lamented their passing in countless poems. How very ordinary the poems had seemed to Sachiko when she read them as a girl, but now she knew, as well as one could know, that grieving over fallen cherry blossoms was more than a fad or convention.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Girl, Grieving, Ordinary

  Junichiro Tanizaki (1957). “The Makioka Sisters”

  10 Copy quote

• Whenever I sit with a bowl of soup before me, listening to the murmur that penetrates like the distant song of an insect, lost in contemplation of the flavours to come, I feel as if I were being drawn into a trance.

  Junichiro Tanizaki

  Song, Listening, Soup

  "Privy counsels" by A.C. Grayling, www.theguardian.com. October 5, 2002.

  8 Copy quote

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