Snow Country Quotes

“As he caught his footing, his head fell back, and the Milky Way flowed down inside him with a roar.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“But even more than her diary, Shimamura was surprised at her statement that she had carefully cataloged every novel and short story she had read since she was fifteen or sixteen. The record already filled ten notebooks.
"You write down your criticisms, do you?"
"I could never do anything like that. I just write down the author and the characters and how they are related to each other. That is about all."
"But what good does it do?"
"None at all."
"A waste of effort."
"A complete waste of effort," she answered brightly, as though the admission meant little to her. She gazed solemnly at Shimamura, however.
A complete waste of effort. For some reason Shimamura wanted to stress the point. But, drawn to her at that moment, he felt a quiet like the voice of the rain flow over him. He knew well enough that for her it was in fact no waste of effort, but somehow the final determination that it had the effect of distilling and purifying the woman's existence.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“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 centre of the girl's face, Shimamura felt his chest rise at the inexpressible beauty of it.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“After all, only women are able really to love.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“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.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“The stars, almost too many of them to be true, came forward so brightly that it was as if they were falling with the swiftness of the void.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“Was this the bright vastness the poet Bashō saw when he wrote of the Milky Way arched over a stormy sea?”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“It was a stern night landscape. The sound of the freezing of snow over the land seemed to roar deep into the earth. There was no moon. The stars, almost too many of them to be true, came forward so brightly that it was as if they were falling with the swiftness of the void. As the stars came nearer, the sky retreated deeper and deeper into the night clolour. The layers of the Border Range, indistinguishable one from another, cast their heaviness at the skirt of the starry sky in a blackness grave and somber enough to communicate their mass. The whole of the night scene came together in a clear, tranquil harmony.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“Her manner was as though she were talking of a distant foreign literature. There was something lonely, something sad in it, something that rather suggested a beggar who has lost all desire.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“And the Milky Way, like a great aurora, flowed through his body to stand at the edges of the earth. There was a quiet, chilly loneliness in it, and a sort of voluptuous astonishment.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“But, drawn to her at that moment, he felt a quiet like the voice of the rain flow over him. He knew well enough that for her it was in fact no waste of effort, but somehow the final determination that it was had the effect of distilling and purifying the woman's existence.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“Again she lost herself in the talk, and again her words seemed to be warming her whole body.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“He was conscious of an emptiness that made him see Komako’s life as beautiful but wasted, even though he himself was the object of her love; and yet the woman’s existence, her straining to live, came touching him like naked skin. He pitied her, and he pitied himself.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“Along the coast the sea roars, and inland the mountains roar – the roaring at the center, like a distant clap of thunder.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“The woman was silent, her eyes on the floor. Shimamura had come to a point where he knew he was only parading his masculine shamelessness, and yet it seemed likely enough that the woman was familiar with the failing and need not be shocked by it. He looked at her. Perhaps it was the rich lashes of the downcast eyes that made her face seem warm and sensuous. She shook her head very slightly, and again a faint blush spread over her face.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“Nothing could be more comfortable than writing about the ballet from books. A ballet he had never seen was an art in another world. It was an unrivaled armchair reverie, a lyric from some paradise. He called his work research, but it was actually free, uncontrolled fantasy. He preferred not to savor the ballet in the flesh; rather he savored the phantasms of his own dancing imagination, called up by Western books and pictures. It was like being in love with someone he had never seen.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“Here in our mountains, the snow falls even on the maple leaves.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“And I can't complain. After all, only women are able really to love”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“The snow on the distant mountains was soft and creamy, as if veiled in a faint smoke.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“The high, thin nose was a little lonely, a little sad, but the bud of her lips opened and closed smoothly, like a beautiful little circle of leeches.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“The rich eyelashes again made him think that her eyes were half open.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“Do you think it's right to not say goodbye to the man you yourself said was on the very first page of your very first volume of your diary? This is the very last page of his.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“THE TRAIN came out of the long tunnel into the snow country.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“In the moonlight the fine geishalike skin took on the luster of a seashell.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“But this love would leave behind it nothing so definite as a piece of Chijimi. Though cloth to be worn is among the most short-lived of craftworks, a good piece of Chijimi, if it has been taken care of, can be worn quite unfaded a half-century and more after weaving. As Shimamura thought absently how human intimacies have not even so long a life, the image of Komako as the mother of another man’s children suddenly floated into his mind. He looked around, startled. Possibly he was tired.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“For such a tiny death, the empty eight-mat room seemed enormous.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“A voice so beautiful it was almost lonely, calling out as if to someone who could not hear, on ship far away.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“The sound of the freezing of snow over the land seemed to roar deep into the earth. There was no moon. The stars, almost too many of them to be true, came forward so brightly that it was as if they were falling with the swiftness of the void.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“The notes went out crystalline into the clean winter morning, to sound on the far, snowy peaks.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

“As it became clear to Shimamura that he had from the start wanted only this woman, and that he had taken his usual roundabout way of saying so, he began to see himself as rather repulsive and the woman as all the more beautiful”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country