Tokyo Quotes

1. "As expected life isn't that sweet at all. When I came to Tokyo I thought I could achieve anything with my own two hands. It's not like that. To get something in these hands, I have to fight a horrible fight. But... there's not much time to grab the things you want with your hands. Why is that?And more importantly what is that I want?"
Author: Ai Yazawa

2. "I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school, and afterward went to work in Tokyo, where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha. He and I never discussed his parentage, which was an open secret, but it fascinated me."
Author: Arthur Golden

3. "He walked on water. Perhaps. But could he have *swum* on land? In matching knickers and dark glasses? With his Fountain in a Love-in-Tokyo? In pointy shoes and a puff? Would he have had the imagination?"
Author: Arundhati Roy

4. "Weren't we all the same as children?" eiko asked. "all of us, destined to become beautiful brides in fluffy white dresses!" she giggled to herself. "where did we go wrong?"isn't that what keeps life interesting?" i replied. "and who knows? next year you could be somebody's wife. no one knows what will happen."sometimes i think it would be wonderful just to stay the way i am forever, just kick back and space out during the afternoon thinking about all the exciting things that the night will bring, all the naughty things i might take part in." she snickered again.well," i said, "aren't you the happy one."she squinted her tiny nose and laughed.dawn was breaking as we said good-bye. i saw her off by watching her small body disappear into the background, her high heels clapping along, echoing in the early morning city.my drunkenness, the sunrise, the bright sky, and a friend who was leaving.if i had died in my fall i would have missed that morning - that splendid sunrise over tokyo."
Author: Banana Yoshimoto

5. "Here in this ocean, in the midst of all this water, with the red flags on those distant buoys flapping in the sea breeze, I find myself unable to treat our house in Tokyo as anything but a dream."
Author: Banana Yoshimoto

6. "After the atomic bombs were dropped, the war ended and we went into Tokyo Bay with the rest of the fleet, the Missouri and the rest of them, while they signed the terms of surrender that ended the war."
Author: Barney Ross

7. "Me and Lucas Black are actually starring in that movie 'Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo.' It's gonna be hot and different. My first action movie, so it's gonna be great."
Author: Bow Wow

8. "On the plane leaving Tokyo I'm sitting alone in back twisting the knobs on Etch-A-Sketch and Roger is next to me singing "Over the Rainbow" straight into my ear, things changing, falling apart, fading, another year, a few more moves, a hard person who doesn't give a fuck, a boredom so monumental it humbles, arrangements so fleeting made by people you don't even know that it requires you to lose any sense of reality you might have once acquired, expectations so unreasonable you become superstitious about ever matching them. Roger offers me a joint and I take a drag and stare out the window and I relax for a moment when the lights of Tokyo, which I never realized is an island, vanish from view but this feeling only lasts a moment because Roger is telling me that other lights in other cities, in other countries, on other planets, are coming into view soon."
Author: Bret Easton Ellis

9. "Hollywood was a detour, although my mother was an aristocrat from Tokyo who ran away to join the theatre, so acting is in my genes."
Author: Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa

10. "I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It's like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It's really fun and there's a very different energy to that than to play to 50,000 at a Tokyo baseball stadium."
Author: Chad Smith

11. "Tokyo was an origami city folded over and over until something was made of virtually nothing."
Author: Christopher Barzak

12. "À Tokyo, où je n'ai jamais mis les pieds, on conserve paraît-il le temps dans de jolies petites boîtes laquées. Si tu veux trois jours, on peut te les vendre. Contre de l'argent ? Non, on n'achète du temps qu'avec du temps. On peut te vendre trois jours gris contre deux jours ensoleillés et une nuit triste. Ou simplement une heure contre un baiser frais. Je voudrais acheter du temps japonais avec des mimosas ruisselants de pluie."
Author: Dany Laferrière

13. "In Paris the cashiers sit rather than stand. They run your goods over a scanner, tally up the price, and then ask you for exact change. The story they give is that there aren't enough euros to go around. "The entire EU is short on coins."And I say, "Really?" because there are plenty of them in Germany. I'm never asked for exact change in Spain or Holland or Italy, so I think the real problem lies with the Parisian cashiers, who are, in a word, lazy. Here in Tokyo they're not just hard working but almost violently cheerful. Down at the Peacock, the change flows like tap water. The women behind the registers bow to you, and I don't mean that they lower their heads a little, the way you might if passing someone on the street. These cashiers press their hands together and bend from the waist. Then they say what sounds to me like "We, the people of this store, worship you as we might a god."
Author: David Sedaris

14. "This is the most beautiful place on earth.There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary. A houseboat in Kashmir, a view down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a gray gothic farmhouse two stories high at the end of a red dog road in the Allegheny Mountains, a cabin on the shore of a blue lake in spruce and fir country, a greasy alley near the Hoboken waterfront, or even, possibly, for those of a less demanding sensibility, the world to be seen from a comfortable apartment high in the tender, velvety smog of Manhattan, Chicago, Paris, Tokyo, Rio, or Rome — there's no limit to the human capacity for the homing sentiment."
Author: Edward Abbey

15. "I've published one book before, and now I'm writing a book of essays and stories about life in Tokyo. And I have one book coming out in May in Germany, about fitness."
Author: Franka Potente

16. "Tengo wasn´t certain that he was doing the right thing. Maybe the time he was spending here, in this room in a sanatorium far from Tokyo was meaningless. Even if it was, though, he didn´t think he could leave."
Author: Haruki Murakami

17. "Along the way I stopped into a coffee shop. All around me normal, everyday city types were going about their normal, everyday affairs. Lovers were whispering to each other, businessmen were poring over spread sheets, college kids were planning their next ski trip and discussing the new Police album. We could have been in any city in Japan. Transplant this coffee shop scene to Yokohama or Fukuoka and nothing would seem out of place. In spite of which -- or, rather, all the more because -- here I was, sitting in this coffee shop, drinking my coffee, feeling a desperate loneliness. I alone was the outsider. I had no place here. Of course, by the same token, I couldn't really say I belonged to Tokyo and its coffee shops. But I had never felt this loneliness there. I could drink my coffee, read my book, pass the time of day without any special thought, all because I was part of the regular scenery. Here I had no ties to anyone. Fact is, I'd come to reclaim myself."
Author: Haruki Murakami

18. "I just gave them a little scare. A touch of psychological terror. As Joseph Conrad once wrote, true terror is the kind that men feel towards their imagination. (from Super-frog Saves Tokyo)"
Author: Haruki Murakami

19. "Six years during which time I'd laid three cats to rest. Burned how many aspirations, bundled up how much suffering in thick sweaters, and buried them in the ground. All in this fathomlessly huge city Tokyo."
Author: Haruki Murakami

20. "Riprendemmo a camminare senza meta per le strade di Tokyo. Camminavamo all'infinito percorrendo salite, oltrepassando fiumi, attraversando incroci, senza avere in mente una meta precisa. Ci bastava il fatto di camminare. Lo facevamo senza mai vacillare, come un rito religioso per la salvezza dell'anima."
Author: Haruki Murakami

21. "Even Ben thought it was strange-Sage had said he'd be down there. Ben wasn't concerned, though. In fact, he looked a little giddy. "Maybe he decided not to come to Tokyo," he chirped. "Oh well, we'll do better with just the two of us."I loved Ben, but he was seriously transparent. "We need Sage to get the Elixir, though." Not that I cared about the Elixir at the moment. I was actually starting to worry. Where was Sage? Was he okay?"He says we need him," Ben scoffed. "I bet the dark lady will tell us everything we need.""Try his cell," I told Rayna.She pulled out her phone and dialed. "No answer.""Text him.""Maybe he just bailed," Ben said.Ben was just way too happy about this. I got it, but it was irritating."
Author: Hilary Duff

22. "Tokyo - still - offers the most tightly integrated infrastructure, where smooth, technology-driven experiences take place when engaging in everyday actions, such as verifying personal identity, paying for goods, and buying tickets."
Author: Jan Chipchase

23. "He stomped away like a pint-sized Godzilla looking for Tokyo."
Author: Julia Spencer Fleming

24. "I am one of the writers who wish to create serious works of literature which dissociate themselves from those novels which are mere reflections of the vast consumer cultures of Tokyo and the subcultures of the world at large."
Author: Kenzaburo Oe

25. "I went to the Tokyo Film Festival in Japan because I love Japanese cinema."
Author: Leslie Caron

26. "I am making this trip to Africa because Washington is an international city, just like Tokyo, Nigeria or Israel. As mayor, I am an international symbol. Can you deny that to Africa?"
Author: Marion Berry

27. "When the farthest corner of the globe has been conquered technologically and can be exploited economically; when any incident you like, in any place you like, at any time you like, becomes accessible as fast as you like; when you can simultaneously "experience" an assassination attempt against a king in France and a symphony concert in Tokyo; when time is nothing but speed, instantaneity, and simultaneity, and time as history has vanished from all Being of all peoples; when a boxer counts as the great man of a people; when the tallies of millions at mass meetings are a triumph; then, yes then, there still looms like a specter over all this uproar the question: what for? — where to? — and what then?"
Author: Martin Heidegger

28. "Walk around Tokyo and all you see are people trying to sell you something. Tell them okay and before you know you have bought something. Make the mistake of telling your address and now you're on a mailing list. Some old guy pats you on the shoulder and before you know what hit you you're in a hotel room. Stalkers' victims, the ones they kill, are always women."
Author: Natsuo Kirino

29. "She had come out tonight because she believed there had to be a present tense, somewhere, and she'd followed Gav and Barnesy because she'd hoped they knew where it was. Is. And they'd dragged her to yet another haunted house. Where was the now? In bloody America, probably, apart from the bit that Tucker lived in, or in bloody Tokyo. In any case, it was somewhere else. How could people who didn't live in bloody America or bloody Tokyo stand it, all that swimming around in the past imperfect?"
Author: Nick Hornby

30. "13. A Buddha In Tokyo in th Meiji era there lived two prominent teachers of opposite characteristics. One, Unsho, an instructor in Shingon, kept Buddha's precepts scrupulously. He never drank intoxicants, nor did he eat after eleven o'clock in the morning. The other teacher, Tanzan, a professor of philosophy at the Imperial University, never observed the precepts. When he felt like eating he ate, and when he felt like sleeping in the daytime he slept. One da Unsho visited Tanzan, who was drinking wine at the time, not even a drop of which is supposed to touch the tongue of a Buddhist. "Hello, brother," Tanzan greeted him. "Won't you have a drink?" "I never drink!" exclaimed Unsho solemnly. "One who never drinks is not even human," said Tanzan. "Do you mean to call me inhuman just because I do not indulge in intoxicating liquids!" exclaimed Unsho in anger. "Then if I am not human, wht am I?" "A Buddha," answered Tanzan."
Author: Nyogen Senzaki

31. "Now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion."
Author: Oscar Wilde

32. "Shanghai set out to take over from Hong Kong and I think it's done that. It's got the most amazing futuristic skyline which rivals and even betters Tokyo."
Author: Paul Oakenfold

33. "But: all journeys were return journeys. The farther one traveled, the nakeder one got, until, towards the end, ceasing to be animated by any scene, one was most oneself, a man in a bed surrounded by empty bottles. The man who says, "I've got a wife and kids" is far from home; at home he speaks of Japan. But he does not know - how could he? - that the scenes changing in the train window from Victoria Station to Tokyo Central are nothing compared to the change in himself; and travel writing, which cannot but be droll at the outset, moves from journalism to fiction, arriving promptly as the Kodama Echo at autobiography. From there any further travel makes a beeline to confession, the embarrassed monologue in a deserted bazaar. The anonymous hotel room in a strange city..."
Author: Paul Theroux

34. "Nereden Gelip Geçer"Bazen pasaportumu çikarirfotografima bakarim(çok iyi degil... vs.)sadece var oldugumu görmek içinTokyo 12 haziran 1976"
Author: Richard Brautigan

35. "We're competing against other great cities: Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo. That's why it's important that we all join together on the final path to Copenhagen. Having the support of President Obama is key."
Author: Richard M. Daley

36. "I love New York. I'm taking English lessons there for the first time. I used to live in Tokyo, but I needed something new. I'm really close to my family. I miss them all the time, but we Skype a lot."
Author: Rinko Kikuchi

37. "We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo - men, women and children. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"
Author: Robert McNamara

38. "Nothing new about death, nothing new about deaths caused militarily. We scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo on that night of March 9-10 than went up in vapor at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined."
Author: Ronald Schaffer

39. "As we moved from Tokyo the world became greener."
Author: Ruth Ozeki

40. "You? You can't believe this? I'm the one who has to go to Artemis to save your ass. She was freaking out over Zarek, now how the hell do I explain to her that Mr. Cool-Calm-and-Collected was doing his impression of Spider Man in a bar loaded with tourists and ended up as the main feature on Tokyo news as what's wrong with American culture? Question. How many rules did you break in less than a minute? (Acheron)"
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

41. "From New Year's Eve through the third of January, the streets of Tokyo grew quiet, as if all the people had disappeared."
Author: Shogo Oketani

42. "I did a lot of shopping for her in Tokyo because the colors here are very conservative. A shopaholic would have a coat in every color and lots of accessories"
Author: Sophie Kinsella

43. "Look at London or Paris: they're both filthy. You don't get that in Tokyo. The proud residents look after their city."
Author: Tadao Ando

44. "Working in Tokyo has convinced me that, contrary to what people think, it is actually one of the world's most beautiful cities."
Author: Tadao Ando

45. "You can be in Tokyo or Alberta at four in the morning in your hotel and you can still practice if you feel like it. A trombone cannot do that at four in the morning."
Author: Toots Thielemans

46. "But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don't. Don't evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo."
Author: Umberto Eco

47. "A minute passes as we enter Little Tokyo. It's kind of similar to what you see in the movies, with a lot of signs in different languages with "engrish" translations underneath and those big red gates with the curved wood on top, whatever they're called. The passing people on the street are, understandably, largely of Asian descent.... I get a couple looks, but I suspect it's 'cause my hair is a variety of shades not seen outside of an anime."
Author: Vaughn R. Demont

48. "Tokyo may have more money and Kyoto more culture; Nara may have more history and Kobe more style. But Osaka has the biggest heart."
Author: Vikas Swarup

49. "And waking, once again, face smudged into Andrea's couch, the red quilt humped around her shoulders, smelling coffee, while Andrea hummed some Tokyo pop song to herself in the next room, dressing, in a gray morning of Paris rain."
Author: William Gibson

50. "If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it you would be amazed at the animals that fall out: badgers, wolves, boa constrictors, crocodiles, ostriches, baboons, capybaras, wild boars, leopards, manatees, ruminants, in untold numbers. There is no doubt in my mind that that feral giraffes and feral hippos have been living in Tokyo for generations without seeing a soul."
Author: Yann Martel

Tokyo Quotes Pictures