Quotes from James Clavell

Yabu his sword." "I think Lord Toranaga only wants Izu strong and a vassal state. Not as an ally. He doesn't want allies any more than the Taik? did. Yabu thinks he's an ally. I think Toranaga detests allies. Our clan will prosper as Toranaga vassals. Or as Ishido

Death and life are the same thing. This is the immutable law of nature.

Do I want to bed her? Sure. So mount a campaign, maneuver her into bed without commitments. Don't play the game of life according to female rules, all's fair in war and war. What's love anyway? It's like Casey said, sex's only a part of it.

Women don't have wisdom or knowledge in political things.

Beyond the castle walls, the city lay in almost total darkness. Above, the moon was pallid and misted. It was a brooding, darkling night. And, it seemed to him, doom walked the heavens.

a man has a false heart in his mouth for all the world to see, another in his breast to show his very special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except himself alone

Yes. My ship'll be like her, he promised himself. She'll be trim and miniature and perfect like a Yoshitomo blade, and that's the best in the world, and just as dangerous. Next year she'll take a prize twenty times her own weight, like Mariko did at Osaka, ans she'll rip the enemy out of Asia.

Mariko,san, it was your karma to die gloriously and live forever. Anjin-san, my friend, it is your karma never to leave this land. It is mine to be Shogun.

The Scots knew that the burning of a cross was a summons to the clan, and to all the kinsmen of all kindred clans: a summons to rally to the cross for battle. And the burning cross was raised only by the chief of the clan. By ancient law, once raised, the burning cross committed the clan to defend the land unto the end of the clan.

Remember that fortune and misfortune should be left to heaven and natural law. They are not to be bough by prayer or any cunning device to be thought of by any man or self-styled saint. p848

The Blessed Jesus said, 'First cast the mote out of your own eye before you cast the beam out of mine.

The time be gone forever when the like of me's to suck thy arse 'cause of a poxy title which like as not were gifted first to a king's whore, a king's bastard, or buyed by knife in a king's back.

What is pain to a man? A privilege! Masking pain is the measure of a man.

Sometimes full agreements, delicate agreements, should not be reduced into writing.

Toranaga eased his kimono and loincloth aside, as did Yabu. Together they urinated and mixed their urine and watched it dew the garden below.

For a woman, old age is never pretty.

His eyes Were just the end Of Hell— All pain, Articulate.

It is not wise to notice another man's woman.

If you allow Their chill to reach Into the great, great deep, You become one with them, Inarticulate.

It's good for a man to get drunk once in a while. It releases all the evil spirits.

To think bad thoughts is really the easiest in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral you down into ever-increasing unhappiness.

Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you're here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you're alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it's beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose

Empires are built by young men, Culum. They're lost by old men.

Put aside your sadness. Life is all sadness.