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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
Religion
Winter
Priest
Heart
Mountain
Hall
Moon
Exchange
Meditation
Halls
Poet
Priests
Becomes
Companion
Interplay
Philosophy
Delicate
Sunk
Upon
Engaged
Sings

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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I suppose even a woman's hatred is a kind of love.
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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.
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The snow on the distant mountains was soft and creamy, as if veiled in a faint smoke.
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Along the coast the sea roars, and inland the mountains roar – the roaring at the center, like a distant clap of thunder.
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I wonder what the retirement age is in the novel business. The day you die.
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And I can't complain. After all, only women are able really to love.
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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.
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THE TRAIN came out of the long tunnel into the snow country.
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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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They were words that came out of nothing, but they seemed to him somehow significant. He muttered them over again.
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But a haiku by Buson came into his mind: 'I try to forget this senile love a chilly autumn shower.' The gloom only grew denser.
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The labor into which a heart has poured its whole love--where will it have its say, to excite and inspire, and when?
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Our language is primarily for expressing human goodness and beauty.
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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.
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Because you cannot see him, God is everywhere.
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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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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