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The train came out of the long border tunnel — and there was the snow country. The night had turned white.

— Yasunari Kawabata Snow Country (1948)

国境の長いトンネルを抜けると雪国であった。夜の底が白くなった。

Original text (Japanese)

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Notes from Wikiquote

First lines (as translated by Edward Seidensticker).

More quotes by Yasunari Kawabata

A masterpiece of a game can be ruined by insensitivity to the feelings of an adversary.

The Master of Go (1951)

Because you cannot see him, God is everywhere.

That play of black upon white, white upon black, has the intent and takes the form of creative art. It has in it a flow of the spirit and a harmony of music.

The Master of Go (1951)

The single flower contains more brightness than a hundred flowers.

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)

My own works have been described as works of emptiness, but it is not to be taken for the nihilism of the West. The spiritual foundation would seem to be quite different.

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Yasunari Kawabata (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.