Junichiro Tanizaki Inspirational Quotes (8)

There are those who say that when civilization progresses a bit further transportation facilities will move into the skies and under the ground, and that our streets will again be quiet, but I know perfectly well that when that day comes some new device for torturing the old will be invented.

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.

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

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

Whenever I sit with a bowl of soup before me, listening to the murmur that penetrates like the distant song of an insect, lost in contemplation of the flavours to come, I feel as if I were being drawn into a trance.

The heart of mine is only one, it cannot be known by anybody but myself.

Each worm to his taste some prefer to eat nettles.

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.