Snow Country Quotes
"The sound of the freezing of snow over the land seemed to roar deep into the earth."
"The stars, almost too many of them to be true, came forward so brightly that it was as if they were falling with the swiftness of the void."
"The whole of the night scene came together in a clear, tranquil harmony."
"Everything I touched was cold in a way I had never known before."
"It was a stern night landscape. The sound of the freezing of snow over the land seemed to roar deep into the earth."
"The layers of the Border Range, indistinguishable one from another, cast their heaviness at the skirt of the starry sky in a blackness grave and somber enough to communicate their mass."
"A complete waste of effort. For some reason, I wanted to stress the point."
"It was perhaps ten o'clock that night. The woman called loudly to me from the hall, and a moment later she fell into my room as if someone had thrown her."
"It's always fun to read an old diary. But I don’t hide anything when I write in my diary, and sometimes I’m ashamed to look at it myself."
"The charm of the mirror faded with the fading landscape."
"But it’s all right. The farmers aren’t busy this time of the year, and no one will be out so early."
"Your cheeks are flaming. That’s how cold it is."
"It’s not from the cold. It’s because I’ve taken off my powder."
"The brightness of the snow was more intense, it seemed to be burning icily."
"Children of the village were skiing in the fields."
"Little icicles glistened daintily along the eaves."
"The low eaves hugging the ground seemed to have in them the very essence of the north country."
"Even the faded, ashen line of reclaimed yarn from the younger girl to the older seemed warmly aglow."
"For a moment he was taken with the fancy that the light must pass through Komako, living in the silkworms’ room, as it passed through the translucent silkworms."
"It makes me very impatient to hear them playing."
"The snow on the distant mountains was soft and creamy, as if veiled in a faint smoke."
"She wore no powder, and the polish of the city geisha had over it a layer of mountain color."
"The smooth lips seemed to reflect back a dancing light even when they were drawn into a tight bud."
"Her very loneliness beat down sorrow and fostered a wild strength of will."
"Like a warm light, Komako poured in on the empty wretchedness that had assailed Shimamura."
"The room looked from high ground directly south over the ski runs at the base of the mountain."
"Komako was leading Kimi down the steep road below the ski grounds."
"Komako’s too-black hair was a little touching, a little sad, in the loneliness of the shadowed mountain pocket."
"It was the bright red it had been in the mirror that snowy morning, and for Shimamura that color again seemed to be the point at which he parted with reality."
"The stars here are different from the stars in Tokyo," Shimamura said after a time. "They seem to float up from the sky."
"I don’t tell lies just because people might be listening."
"The moonlight, so bright that the furrows in the woman’s ear were clearly shadowed, struck deep into the room and seemed to turn the mats on the floor a chilly green."
"People say I haven’t changed since I came here. I was sixteen then. But life goes on the same, year after year."
"If you understand, then tell me. Tell me, if you see how I feel."
"It’s enough if she made a hundred yen a month, she said."
"Every day she had a bath in the hot spring, famous for its lingering warmth."
"The guidebook gave only the most essential information on routes, schedules, lodgings, costs, and left the rest to the imagination."
"When he was far away, he thought incessantly of Komako; but now that he was near her, this sighing for the human skin took on a dreamy quality like the spell of the mountains."
"The russet deepened on the Border Range. In the evening sun the mountains lighted up sharply, like a rather chilly stone."
"Her skin was as clean as if it had just been laundered."
"The thought of the white linen, spread out on the deep snow, the cloth and the snow glowing scarlet in the rising sun, was enough to make him feel that the dirt of the summer had been washed away, even that he himself had been bleached clean."
"The sight when, as the bleaching came to an end, the rays of the rising sun turned the white Chijimi blood-red was quite beyond description."
"The ancients used to add that the way this product of the cold has of feeling cool to the skin in the hottest weather is a play of the principles of light and darkness."
"The labor into which a heart has poured its whole love—where will it have its say, to excite and inspire, and when?"
"In the faint light that left no shadows on the earth, Komako’s face floated up like an old mask. It was strange that even in the mask there should be the scent of the woman."
"The limitless depth of the Milky Way pulled his gaze up into it, and it seemed to take him up into its radiance."
"The Milky Way flowed over them in the direction they were running, and seemed to bathe Komako’s head in its light."
"He looked up, and again the Milky Way came down to wrap itself around the earth."
"The light was dimmer even than on the night of the new moon, and yet the Milky Way was brighter than the brightest full moon."