The mastery of writing is ultimately an aesthetics, and it comes down to whether one can create one's own style.
われわれ東洋人は何でもない所に陰翳を生じさせて、美を創造するのである。
Writers & Literary Figures
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
Tanizaki Junichiro (1886-1965) was a Japanese novelist celebrated for his exploration of sexuality, beauty, and the tension between Western modernization and Japanese tradition. His masterwork 'The Makioka Sisters' chronicles an Osaka merchant family's decline, while 'In Praise of Shadows' remains the essential essay on Japanese aesthetics.
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Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's Other Quotes
Related Quotes
There is no such thing as a perfect sentence. Just as there is no such thing as perfect despair.
-- Yukio Mishima
The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.
-- Edgar Allan Poe
We Orientals create beauty by generating shadows in places that are nothing special.
-- Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
Trample. It is to be trampled on by you that I am here. I know the pain in your foot best of all.
-- Shūsaku Endō
The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country.
-- Yasunari Kawabata
美しさと哀しさとは何故これほどに通ひ合うのだろうか。
-- Yasunari Kawabata