Quotes from Junichirô Tanizaki

Her eyes, nose, hands, feet... Each part was a supreme delicacy, and I was insatiable.

Can it be, I wondered, that life without her is so dull as this?

Como era tan presumida como hermosa, si no se veía adorada, se sentía como desdeñada. Parecía convencida de que, si se rendía de amor ante alguien, se rebajaba.

The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose.

It is hard for one who has not had a similar experience to imagine the terror that still gripped Taeko and Mrs. Tamaki and Hiroshi, so intense a terror that afterwards it seemed almost funny.

The novelist Natsume Soseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, 'a physiological delight' he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves.

Such is our way of thinking - 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.

It has been said of Japanese food that it is a cuisine to be looked at rather than eaten. I would go further and say that it is to be meditated upon, a kind of silent music evoked by the combination of lacquerware and the light of a candle flickering in the dark.

Modern man, in his well-lit house, knows nothing of the beauty of gold; but those who lived in the dark houses of the past were not merely captivated by its beauty, they also knew its practical value; for gold, in these dim rooms, must have served the function of a reflector. Their use of gold leaf and gold dust was not mere extravagance. Its reflective properties were put to use as a source of illumination.

It will seem odd, I suppose, that I should go on in this vein, as if I too were grumbling in my dotage. Yet of this I am convinced, that the conveniences of modern culture cater exclusively to youth, and that the times grow increasingly inconsiderate of old people.

Pero cuando, sustituidas éstas (las lámparas eléctricas con pantalla de papel) por los candelabros, de luz todavía más tenue, se observan las bandejas y boles bajo el parpadeo de la trémula llama, se descubre cómo el brillo de todos esos objetos lacados, hondo y espeso como las aguas de un estanque, va revistiéndose de un encanto completamente diferente al que había mostrado hasta entonces.

Los chinos, por su parte, aman también el jade, pero es que quizás seamos los orientales los últimos que sentimos fascinación por estos pedruscos de aspecto extrañamente turbio, en los que parece que haya cuajado un aire viejo, de siglos, piedras que encierran en lo más profundo un brillo opaco, como estancado.

I do not want any man to see me suffer.

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.

We Orientals find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and darkness which that thing provides.

Find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and dark which that thing provides.

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.

If I know from the start that I'm going to be alone, I'm not lonely. It doesn't bother me.

but once you start doubting,it's hard to know what to believe.

For someone who writes as slowly as I do, each installment is a full day's work. Newspaper novels are painful... Whether I like what I'm writing or not, whether I'm feeling inspired or not, I have to write an installment every day.

I wanted to boast to everyone,"This woman is mine. Take a look at my treasure.

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.

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

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