Utamakura 69

“Haiku were for Basho and old men in barbershops. You wouldn’t catch a math teacher getting all captivated by morning glories and well buckets.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Botchan

“seems theoretically possible to me that humans could walk without talking, but we Japanese folks are born mouth first, and you can’t shut us up no matter how hard you try.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Botchan

“Shinto is nature. Perhaps animism—and Shinto is the only formal animistic religion left—is the true religion. It has roots deep in all of us. One recognizes this. It is the only religion that can inspire the feeling children know when the wind or a rock is made god for a week or a day. Its essence is unknown and unknowable, yet this unknown does not exclude us because we too are unknown. This religion speaks to us, to something in us which is deep and permanent.”
― Donald Richie, The Inland Sea

“THE PORT OF the main island of Iejima, despite or because of its lack of tourist recommendations, is instantly attractive. Houses tumble down the hillsides, fall over each other, and all but end in the water. Their gray-tile roofs almost touch, and small and narrow alleys swarm in all directions. The mud walls, straw showing through, are so close that it would seem the inhabitants move crab-fashion. The port is filled with fishing boats, strange, junklike ships with high prows and raked sails, and around them, on the docks, are bales and coils and baskets and boxes. On all sides there is the most glorious confusion. In”
― Donald Richie, The Inland Sea