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The winter moon becomes a companion, the heart of the priest, sunk in meditation upon religion and philosophy, there in the mountain hall, is engaged in a delicate interplay and exchange with the moon and it is this of which the poet sings.

Yasunari Kawabata

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Yasunari Kawabata
Age: 72 †
Born: 1899
Born: June 11
Died: 1972
Died: April 16
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Ōsaka
Heart
Mountain
Hall
Moon
Exchange
Meditation
Halls
Poet
Priests
Becomes
Companion
Interplay
Philosophy
Delicate
Sunk
Upon
Engaged
Sings
Religion
Winter
Priest

More quotes by Yasunari Kawabata

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Seeing the moon, he becomes the moon, the moon seen by him becomes him. He sinks into nature, becomes one with nature. The light of the clear heart of the priest, seated in the meditation hall in the darkness before the dawn, becomes for the dawn moon its own light.
Yasunari Kawabata
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But, drawn to her at that moment, he felt a quiet like the voice of the rain flow over him. He knew well enough that for her it was in fact no waste of effort, but somehow the final determination that it was had the effect of distilling and purifying the woman's existence.
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Because you cannot see him, God is everywhere.
Yasunari Kawabata
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A poetess who had died young of cancer had said in one of her poems that for her, on sleepless nights, 'the night offers toads and black dogs and corpses of the drowned.
Yasunari Kawabata
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The true joy of a moonlit night is something we no longer understand. Only the men of old, when there were no lights, could understand the true joy of a moonlit night.
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Now, even more than the evening before, he could think of no one with whom to compare her. She had become absolute, beyond comparison. She had become decision and fate.
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People have separated from each other with walls of concrete that blocked the roads to connection and love. and Nature has been defeated in the name of development.
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And I can't complain. After all, only women are able really to love.
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Lunatics have no age. If we were crazy, you and I, we might be a great deal younger.
Yasunari Kawabata
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The road was frozen. The village lay quiet under the cold sky. Komako hitched up the skirt of her kimono and tucked it into her obi. The moon shone like a blade frozen in blue ice.
Yasunari Kawabata
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I wonder what the retirement age is in the novel business. The day you die.
Yasunari Kawabata
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Maybe vagueness has been good for me. The word means two different things in Tokyo and Osaka, you know. In Tokyo it means stupidity, but in Osaka they talk about vagueness in a painting and in a game of Go.
Yasunari Kawabata
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Our language is primarily for expressing human goodness and beauty.
Yasunari Kawabata
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I suppose even a woman's hatred is a kind of love.
Yasunari Kawabata
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They were words that came out of nothing, but they seemed to him somehow significant. He muttered them over again.
Yasunari Kawabata
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Put your soul in the palm of my hand for me to look at, like a crystal jewel. I'll sketch it in words.
Yasunari Kawabata
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The snow on the distant mountains was soft and creamy, as if veiled in a faint smoke.
Yasunari Kawabata
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Cosmic time is the same for everyone, but human time differs with each person. Time flows in the same way for all human beings every human being flows through time in a different way.
Yasunari Kawabata
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It's remarkable how we go on year after year, doing the same old things. We get tired and bored, and ask when they'll come for us
Yasunari Kawabata
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A secret, if it's kept, can be sweet and comforting, but once it leaks out it can turn on you with a vengeance.
Yasunari Kawabata