Quotes from Murasaki Shikibu

The 'red-tinged flower' is far from fair, Nor do my eyes delight to see, But yon red plum which blossoms there, Is full of loveliness to me.

Gosensh? 1107 (?shik?chi no Mitsune): "Naturally the person who planted it has grown old ... but how tall the pine is now!

Aware of my own insignificance, I had at least managed for the time being to avoid anything that might have been considered shameful or unbecoming; yet here I was, tasting the bitterness of life to the very full.

Women are by nature blithely content to allow others to deceive them. You know full well these tales have only the slightest connection to reality, and yet you let your heart be moved by trivial words and get so caught up in the plots that you copy them out without giving a thought to the tangled mess your hair has become in this humid weather.

There is a tendency among men as well as women ... so soon as they have acquired a little knowledge of some kind, to want to display it to the best advantage.

Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.

Intimacy between stepchildren and stepparents is indeed proverbially difficult.

[The art of the novel] 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.

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.

Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.

It is useless to talk with those who do not understand one and troublesome to talk with those who criticize from a feeling of superiority. Especially one-sided persons are troublesome. Few are accomplished in many arts and most cling narrowly to their own opinion.

There are as many sorts of women as there are women.

The world know it not; but you, Autumn, I confess it: your wind at night-fall stabs deep into my heart

No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly...and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.

Autumn is no time to lie alone

Life is full of uncertainties, perhaps one day some unforeseen circumstance would bring her into his life once more

Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow.

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.

You are here to remind me of someone I long for, and what is it you long for yourself? We must have been together in an earlier life, you and I.

One ought not to be unkind to a woman merely on account of her plainness, any more than one had a right to take liberties with her merely because she was handsome

Well, we never expected this!" they all say. "No one liked her. They all said she was pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous, and scornful. But when you meet her, she is strangely meek, a completely different person altogether!" How embarrassing! Do they really look upon me as a dull thing, I wonder? But I am what I am.

If like the leaf of the wisteria through which the sun darts his rays transparently you give your heart to me, I will no longer distrust you

Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.

People make a great deal of the flowers of spring and the leaves of autumn, but for me a night like this, with a clear moon shining on snow, is the best -- and there is not a trace of color in it. I cannot describe the effect it has on me, weird and unearthly somehow. I do not understand people who find a winter evening forbidding.