Junichiro Tanizaki

“The power of the unseen is absolute.”

“The truth is that we have been educated to be a people of excesses; we are cynical, disrespectful, and sensuous.”

“There are those who say that when civilization progresses, literature will fall into decay.”

“I wonder what feelings inspire a man to complain of 'having nothing to do'.”

“What is called 'beauty' is often an adumbration of death.”

“If light is scarce, then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty.”

“I would call back at least for a while the world of shadows we are losing.”

“I have no desire for others to take it on themselves to analyze my thoughts. I am a bad subject.”

“But what a delight that mosquito is! It's a living piece of jewelry.”

“The 'mysterious Orient' of which Westerners speak probably refers to the uncanny silence of these dark places.”

“With a beautiful woman, I have to be in charge. I've always been that way.”

“It is not that the artist is indifferent to the world; he is simply not interested in it in the same way that the politician is.”

“We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.”

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

“And so it has come to be that the beauty of a Japanese room depends on a variation of shadows.”