19 quotes
Though the snow-drifts of Yoshino were heaped across his path, doubt not that whither his heart is set, his footsteps shall tread out their way.
The Tale of Genji (1925)
Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow.
The Tale of Genji (1925)
Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.
The Tale of Genji (1925)
It is in general the unexplored that attracts us.
The Tale of Genji (1925)
'Nothing in the world is difficult,' said the Patriarch, 'it is only our own thoughts that make things seem so.'
Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942)
When translating prose dialogue one ought to make the characters say things that people talking English could conceivably say. One ought to hear them talking, just as a novelist hears his characters talk.
A handful of one's country's soil is worth more than ten thousand pounds of foreign gold.
Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942)
You that in far-off countries of the sky can dwell secure, look back upon me here; for I am weary of this frail world's decay.
The Tale of Genji (1925)
A team of horses cannot overtake a word that has left the mouth.
Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942)
Anything whatsoever may become the subject of a novel, provided only that it happens in this mundane life and not in some fairyland beyond our human ken.
The Tale of Genji (1925)
Since the classical language has an easy grammar and limited vocabulary, a few months should suffice for the mastering of it.
Japanese Poetry: The Uta (1919)
'If the Government gets hold of you they'll flog you to death; if the Buddhists get hold of you they'll starve you to death.'
Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942)
Think not that I have come in quest of common flowers; but rather to bemoan the loss of one whose scent has vanished from the air.
The Tale of Genji (1925)
Anyone with a good classical education could learn Chinese by himself without difficulty.
I have not used rhyme, because what is really, in the long run, of most interest to American readers is what the poems say; and if one uses rhyme, it is impossible not to sacrifice sense to sound.
To the European poet the relation between man and woman is a thing of supreme importance and mystery. To the Chinese, it is something commonplace, obvious—a need of the body, not a satisfaction of the emotions.
A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1919)
Tripitaka stepped lightly ashore. He had discarded his earthly body; he was cleansed from the corruption of the senses, from the fleshly inheritance of those bygone years. His was now the transcendent wisdom that leads to the Further Shore, the mastery that knows no bounds.
Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942)
I have a theory of my own about what this art of the novel is, and how it came into being. To begin with, it does not simply consist in the author's telling a story about the adventures of some other person. On the contrary, it happens because the storyteller's own experience of men and things, whether for good or ill—not only what he has passed through himself, but even events which he has only witnessed or been told of—has moved him to an emotion so passionate that he can no longer keep it shut up in his heart.
The Tale of Genji (1925)
'To hope for [immortality],' said the Patriarch, 'would be like trying to fish the moon out of the water.'
'There you go again!' said Monkey. 'What pray do you mean by fishing the moon out of the water?'
'When the moon is in the sky,' said the Patriarch, 'it is reflected in the water. It looks just like a real thing, but if you try to catch hold of it, you find it is only an illusion.'
Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942)