EIJI YOSHIKAWA QUOTES
Japanese novelist (1892-1962)
The greatest happiness of life was to stand at the difficult border between success and failure.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Taiko
Her only weapons were her tears.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Taiko
To Kiyomori each stall, each soul here seemed borne under by the crushing weight of the world; everyone here was a pitiful weed, trodden underfoot -- a conglomeration of human lives putting down roots in this slime, living and letting live in the struggle to survive; and he was stirred by the fearful and magnificent courage communicated by the scene.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
The Heike Story
Oh, you crows! Feast away! What a spread! Soup straight from the eye sockets! And thick red sake! But don't have too much Or you'll surely get drunk.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
When a woman dislikes the man who is courting her, she parries him cleverly, like a willow in the wind.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Taiko
Think what you like. There are people who die by remaining alive and others who gain life by dying.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
It is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
It does happen, of course, that the priesthood has been on bad terms with womankind for some three thousand years. You see, Buddhism teaches that women are evil. Fiends. Messengers of hell. I've spent years immersed in the scriptures, so it's no accident that you and I fight all the time.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
The Way of the Samurai
Hold on to your life and make it honest and brave.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
People tend to be put off by the idea of selling sex, but if you spend a winter's night with one of them and talk with her about her family and so on, you're likely to find she's just like any other woman.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
The Art of War
The world is a stone wall ... and they have put the stones so close together that there is not a single crack through which one may enter.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
The bitter winds in February were sometimes called the First East Winds, but the longing for spring somehow made them seem more piercing.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
The Heike Story
The summit is believed to be the object of the climb. But its true object--the joy of living--is not in the peak itself, but in the adversities encountered on the way up.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Taiko
The truth of the scholar, alone in his study, does not always accord with what the world at large considers to be true.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
There's not much benefit in attacking an empty house.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Taiko
Enemies were teachers in disguise.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
Danger was the grindstone on which the swordsman whetted his spirit.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
A wise man who cultivates wisdom may sometimes drown in it.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Taiko
Sincerity, even if it speaks with a stutter, will sound eloquent when inspired.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Taiko
It is easy to crush an enemy outside oneself but impossible to defeat an enemy within.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi