Eiji Yoshikawa

“it is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor.”

“Fighting isn't all there is to the Art of War. The men who think that way, and are satisfied to have food to eat and a place to sleep, are mere vagabonds. A serious student is much more concerned with training his mind and disciplining his spirit than with developing martial skills.”

“She needed intimacy and a sense of partaking in, not just observing, real life.”

“It's interesting, isn't it? Being in the world.”

“The summit is believed to be the object of the climb. But its true object—the joy of living—is not in the peak itself, but in the adversities encountered on the way up. There are valleys, cliffs, streams, precipices, and slides, and as he walks these steep paths, the climber may think he cannot go any farther, or even that dying would be better than going on. But then he resumes fighting the difficulties directly in front of him, and when he is finally able to turn and look back at what he has overcome, he finds he has truly experienced the joy of living while on life's very road.”

“The greatest happiness of life was to stand at the difficult border between success and failure.”

“Her only weapons were her tears.”