Spring Snow Quotes
"From these men, there emanated a tangible emotion that broke in a wave against the small white altar, the flowers, the cenotaph in their midst."
"Both its age and its sepia ink tinged the photograph with an atmosphere of infinite poignance."
"The only thing that seemed valid to him was to live for the emotions—gratuitous and unstable, dying only to quicken again, dwindling and flaring without direction or purpose."
"Dreams, memories, the sacred—they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp."
"Every woman without exception is a liar and 'nothing but a plump, lascivious little animal.'"
"Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch."
"Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous."
"His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles."
"To live in the midst of an era is to be oblivious to its style."
"Any will has as its essence the desire to influence history."
"History, enjoying the new glory that had been my vision, would smile at me with cool condescension and mock my ambition."
"To build and to destroy are one and the same thing for history."
"History has no will of its own and, furthermore, it hasn’t the least concern for mine either."
"The only things you do put any faith in are your own good looks, your changing moods, your individuality."
"Without the concept of chance, you see, the Western philosophy of free will could never have arisen."
"The Will feels his substance begin to crumble and dissolve. His flesh rots and falls away."
"Though now I sweep a little room, I will not do so forever. Can Kyushu hold my ambition?"
"In legendary times, the savage god Susano found satisfaction in the same way."
"The world would always accept Kiyoaki’s pleasures as charming and natural, whereas it would condemn his own with unflagging severity as sordid, not to say sinful."
"Is this my way of finding pleasure?—a man of twenty-four, capable of great bravery and ripe for the highest honors."
"Driven to savagery by his fantasies, he was brutal with the girl. The more he pitied her, the crueler he became."
"In my heart it seemed as if the snow had not stopped, but was falling still."
"The life of the emotions detests all constraints, whatever their origin."
"His pride was hurt when he realized that this was all he had to rely on as the fierce pain and agony of love spun their coil."
"No matter what else might be true, the happiness he had felt at that moment had the brilliant fire of a rich jewel."
"To suffer a single encounter such as this was enough to cast a light film over it."
"I'll never shed real blood. I'll never wound anything but hearts."
"A graceful death—as a richly patterned kimono, thrown carelessly across a polished table, slides unobtrusively down into the darkness of the floor beneath."
"Despite her denial, Satoko had read his letter after all."
"He was like a lake whose clear waters reveal the very pebbles on its bed at one moment, only to cloud over the next in a sudden squall."
"Every charming creature, no matter what sort, seems to have a strong odor."
"She pretended to worship me, but she was really baby-nursing."
"Kiyoaki was plunged into feelings of foreboding."
"They stood out against the last light of the sun like thick, shaggy white wool."
"I’m too involved in my dream-world. They’re a flood that’s sweeping me away."
"It made him think of an undertaker’s cosmetics."
"I’m slow off the mark, but once I get started, I’m not the type to stop halfway."
"The age of glorious wars ended with the Meiji era. Today, all the stories of past wars have sunk to the level of those edifying accounts we hear from middle-aged noncoms in the military science department or the boasts of farmers around a hot stove."
"This is the era for the war of emotion. The kind of war no one can see, only feel—a war, therefore, that the dull and insensitive won’t even notice."
"The spirit of General Nogi lived on in the compulsory dormitory regime at Peers, but its harsh rules did, nonetheless, contain allowances for those whose health was not up to the demands made on them."
"If only Hidé had not been there that night, everything would have been all right."
"I made a promise to the boss just now. From now on I’m going to have nothing more to do with men, I told her."
"But I don’t know if I can hold out even for three days."
"The knife I used was the one Matsukichi uses to cut sashimi. He’s a man who takes real pride in his work and he has all kinds of good knives."
"Everything that I had planned so carefully, thinking it for the best, has failed terribly."
"Once you have a permanent home, send me a note with your address. Who knows, perhaps I might come and see you some time."
"Every dream ends. Wouldn’t it be foolish, knowing that nothing lasts forever, to insist that one has a right to do something that does?"
"The path we’re taking is not a road, Kiyo, it’s a pier, and it ends someplace where the sea begins."
"I am drinking in every passing moment of happiness, but you seem to have had enough of it."
"Happiness is something I’ve left far behind me."
"Even if eternity existed, it would be this moment."
"The world was constantly and imperceptibly changing, just like wine inside a bottle."
"In the midst of the turmoil of history, each one of us builds his own little shelter of self-awareness and we can never leave it."
"To be here at this place with his three companions, at this marvelous border between land and sea, struck him as being very similar to being alive as one age was ending and another beginning, like being part of a great moment in history."
"If we had everyone’s blessing, we would probably never dare to do what we’ve done."
"To encounter it in their books was intellectually stimulating, but this kind of pleasure gave him a guilty conscience."
"You won’t regret it even if you are jailed for it. At least they surely won’t execute you."
"This is the turning point: either you will become a man or you will not."
"Her words already held the dignity of a princess."
"Each time before they met, their cheeks were pale and sunken with melancholy, but as soon as they saw each other, their faces began to shine as brightly as glossy heads of barley in a June field."
"True enough, she was waiting for the day when he would tell her that he wanted to leave Satoko and would she please gently read the funeral rites for him."
"What he was experiencing now was genuine emotion."
"I want you to say nothing at all about this to Kiyo."
"The nation is important, of course, but we must think of the family too."
"I have no intention of handing Satoko over as a chaste virgin to any bridegroom for whom I have Matsugae’s benevolence to thank."
"Everything was thus proceeding smoothly to an altogether satisfactory conclusion, although the person most intimately concerned had no role in it."
"The truth of the matter is that it has recently become evident that, due to Tadeshina’s negligence in her entrusted duties, Miss Satoko Ayakura is pregnant."
"The moment she had learned from the steward Yamada that Kiyoaki had lied about Satoko’s letter, Tadeshina had found herself at a fork in the road."
"She was intent on making the meetings as frequent as possible to hasten the wane of their passion, but she failed to perceive that her own passions had become involved."
"To watch their hopeless love burn more and more passionately—bit by bit she gave way to an agony of delight that ignored every single danger."
"The specter of ruin never rose before the Count."
"Satoko agreed uncertainly as a single tear rolled down her lovely face."
"It was as if a pack of wolves went raging through the darkness of a sacred precinct."
"It rescued him from the anxiety he thought he had left behind him, forgotten."
"But no, what I’m after is something that will shake the whole country to its foundations."
"The vital issue was not feeling but circumstance."
"As irrevocable as the amputation of a limb, the ties that bound her to the world of transience were being severed."
"The forces at work within him, the emotion he wanted to communicate, had to have subtlety and grace."
"The reality at the heart of his father’s anger was worry and fear."
"His heart had become desolate. Nowhere in himself could he find the kind of graceful sorrow that inspires poems."
"The truth of the matter was that this wig as yet only existed in their imaginations."
"Even if someone is sick, there’s no way of knowing until the symptoms appear, is there?"
"A huge flock of crows was perched in the bare branches of the maples on the hill."
"The brightness, distant yet almost painful, was visible to Kiyoaki alone."
"Such being the most august composition of His Sacred Majesty."
"I’ve dared to betray His Majesty. There’s nothing to do but to die."
"His Japan was light green, a country without shape, full of a pathos, as pervasive as rising mist."
"The night sea like a huge, black beast with a living warmth, a pulse of its own, and blood that cried out."
"His tears soaked his pillow and he called her name again and again through the night in helpless frustration."
"Hope and despair, dream and reality, now came together to cancel each other out."
"Though he had mentioned it to no one, he had recently been troubled with frequent headaches and dizzy spells."
"All his recollections of the past had crumbled away."
"His dreams ceased to tell stories objective enough to be recorded in his journal."
"A severe fit of coughing overtook him at the very entrance to Gesshu."
"The scenery that had become familiar in recent days now had a strange novelty about it that was almost unnerving."
"Surrounded by unbroken silence and utter clarity was a world untouched by blemish of any kind."
"The strength had gone out of him. If he lifted his arm, the pale skin immediately turned blue and cold."
"The thought of Satoko now nearby gave him a feeling of deep contentment."
"His affection for his friend was deep, he was willing enough to weep when required."
"As he fought the pain, his finely chiseled nose jutted upward as if he were trying to probe the darkness around him."