Quotes from Jun'ichir? Tanizaki

Me gusta ver cómo se esfuerza por mantenerse sobria y pálida y por parecer fría. En esas ocasiones hay en ella algo tan seductor que desafía la descripción.

He has no intention of being misled by her. On the contrary, he laughs to himself that he's deceiving her.

deseaba tomar una esposa y vivir como un hombre normal... no para engañar a otros, sino para engañarse a sí mismo, convencerse de que no era diferente en modo alguno de otros hombres.

My head was a stage wrapped in a curtain of black velvet, and on the stage stood a single actress, named Naomi.

I know of few greater pleasures than holding a lacquer soup bowl in my hands, feeling upon my palms the weight of the liquid and its mild warmth. The sensation is something like that of holding a plump newborn baby.

Cuanto más le odiaba, tanto más intentaba amarle, y lo conseguía. Estimulada por el apetito sexual, no podía hacer otra cosa.

Again, and yet again, I looked back at the actor's hands, comparing them with my own; and there was no difference between them. Yet strangely the hands of the man on the stage were indescribably beautiful, while those on my knees were but ordinary hands.

Era mortificante pensar que otro hombre había descubierto ese exótico aspecto de su belleza que a mí se me había pasado por alto. Supongo que los maridos no son tan observadores, porque miran a sus esposas de una manera invariable.

Un genio conversa con otro genio cara a cara, lo que no solo supone una alegría recíproca, sino también una dicha para el universo entero. Esa alegría existe y el universo existe también. El día que los genios no se reconozcan unos a otros, el mundo se oscurecerá y la Tierra dejará de dar vueltas sobre su eje

El muchacho le explicó, como pronunciando un sermón, que el mundo de los hombres era vil y estaba lleno de mentiras. En él, solo el arte conducía a la vida verdadera y eterna, y él mismo era grande porque sabía lo que se encontraba más allá de las puertas del arte. La muchacha no podía dudar de la nobleza de sus palabras.

I felt as though a sympathetic hand were tending the wounds where thorns had stabbed me. . .

Pero eso que generalmente se llama bello no es más que una sublimación de las realidades de la vida, y así fue como nuestros antepasados, obligados a residir, lo quisieran o no, en viviendas oscuras, descubrieron un día lo bello en el seno de la sombra y no tardaron en utilizar la sombra para obtener efectos estéticos. El elogio de la sombra

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

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

We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.

If light is scarce then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty.

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

The quality that we call beauty ... must always grow from the realities of life.

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.

we can't make a decision between being sad for a little while and being wretched for the rest of our lives. Or rather we've made the decision and have trouble finding the courage to carry it through.

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.

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

After looking at myself in the mirror, I looked at Satsuko. I could not believe that we were creatures of the same species. The uglier the face in the mirror, the more extraordinarily beautiful Satsuko seemed. If that ugly face were only uglier, I thought regretfully, Satsuko would look even more beautiful.

It's odd, but even when I am in pain I have a sexual urge. Perhaps especially when I am in pain I have a sexual urge. Or should I say that I am more attracted, more fascinated by women who cause me pain?