"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."
"Does pain go away and leave no trace, then?’ ‘You sometimes even feel sentimental for it."
Source: Yasunari Kawabata (2013). “Thousand Cranes”, p.31, Vintage
About the author
Yasunari Kawabata
Novelist
Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and Nobel laureate, known for his lyrical prose and exploration of themes like nature and loneliness in works like 'Snow Country.'
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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."
"Put your soul in the palm of my hand for me to look at, like a crystal jewel. I'll sketch it in words."
"The labor into which a heart has poured its whole love--where will it have its say, to excite and inspire, and when?"
"In the depths of the mirror the evening landscape moved by, the mirror and the reflected figures like motion pictures superimposed one on the other. The figures and the background were unrelated, and yet the figures, transparent and intangible, and the background, dim in the gathering darkness, melted into a sort of symbolic world not of this world. Particularly when a light out in the mountains shone in the center of the girl's face, Shimamura felt his chest rise at the inexpressible beauty of it."
"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."