Visiting Japan is on our bucket list almost always, and we hope that one day we will manage to see the land of the rising sun. Meantime our daughter Zoe is studying Japanese, I am researching various facts about Japan and reading books about Japan in order to search the best quotes about Japan.

And talking about quotes check our ultimate Greece quotes, Swiss quotes, quotes about Thailand or adventure travel quotes or quotes about hiking, rainbows, rain and beach.

quotes about japan

Best Quotes about Japan

“The whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people. The Japanese people are simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art.” Oscar Wilde

“Japan never considers time together as time wasted. Rather, it is time invested.” Donald Richie

Quotes about the land of the rising sun

‘I’ve been to Japan so many times, but I still constantly stumble across things that are so foreign to me.” Travis Rice

‘If you are a Westerner and you spend enough time in Japan—and you speak Japanese—you will eventually be told that you cannot truly understand the Japanese. Only the Japanese can understand themselves.” Marie Mutsuki Mockett

One glass of water doesn’t equal another. One may just appease the thirst, the other you may enjoy thoroughly. In Japan, people know about this difference.” Jil Sander

Quotes about Japanese food

“I was not prepared for the feel of the noodles in my mouth, or the purity of the taste. I had been in Japan for almost a month, but I had never experienced anything like this. The noodles quivered as if they were alive, and leapt into my mouth where they vibrated as if playing inaudible music.”– Ruth Reichl

“Japan has somehow managed to achieve the ideal attitude to eating: an obsession with culinary pleasure that is actually conducive to health.” ― Bee Wilson

“I often look ridiculous in Japan. There’s really no way to eat in Japan, particularly kaiseki in a traditional ryokan, without offending the Japanese horribly. Every gesture, every movement is just so atrociously wrong, and the more I try, the more hilarious it is.” – Anthony Bourdain

“We were in Japan once where they had 30 kinds of green tea. I thought there was one.” ― Billy Corgan

“My husband and I went to Japan for our honeymoon, and you look at, like the presentation of the food, and it’s ridiculous. It looks like a Mondrian painting or something. Everything looks like a bunch of little hello kitty erasers when you eat a little bento box in Japan. It is so precise and beautiful and processed and neat.” – Ali Wong

“No, ramen’s not good for you. But in Japan, our favorite thing to do after drinking all night, especially in Sapporo where it’s freezing cold, is to go to the ramen place at two, three in the morning.” Cary Fukunaga

“Maitake Mushrooms are known in Japan as the dancing mushroom. According to a Japanese legend, a group of Buddhist nuns and woodcutters met on a mountain trail, where they discovered a fruiting of maitake mushrooms emerging from the forest floor. Rejoicing at their discovery of this delicious mushroom, they danced to celebrate.” Paul Stamets

Short quotes about Japan

“What a strange thing! To be alive beneath cherry blossoms.”― Kobayashi Issa

“Japanese good luck cats.” “A maneki neko. Yes. The paw moves—see?”― Penny Reid

“Virtue is not knowing but doing.’ A Japanese Proverbs

“One who smiles rather than rage is always the stronger.” Japan proverb

“Ten different people bring ten different colors.” Japanese proverb

Funny Japan Quotes

“Short and sweet? How very Japanese of you.”

“Kiss me under the cherry blossoms.”

“Happiness is going on a sushi date in Japan.”

“Never coming home. Staying in Osaka forever.”

‘If plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters – 204 if you’re in Japan.’ – Claire Cook

“The method (of learning Japanese) recommended by experts is to be born as a Japanese baby and raised by a Japanese family, in Japan. And even then it’s not easy.” Dave Barry

“Japan is the only country I know where a flower can bring an entire nation to a state of near-sexual excitement.” Karin Muller

“What they have done in Japan, which I find so inspirational, is they’ve brought the toilet out from behind the locked door. They’ve made it conversational. People go out and upgrade their toilet. They talk about it. They have sanitized it.” Rose George

Quotes about Japanese Culture

‘In Japan, they prefer the realistic style. They like answers and conclusions, but my stories have none. I want to leave them wide open to every possibility. I think my readers understand that openness.” Haruki Murakami

“Warriors, willing to give their lives for what seems to have become a forgotten word: honor.” The Last Samurai (2003)

“Japanese culture? I kind of love everything about it. I love the food. Everyone’s really nice. There’s just a lot about Japan that’s really cool.” Naomi Osaka

‘You cannot call yourself a true geisha until you can stop a man in his tracks with a single look.” Arthur Golden

“She paints her face to hide her face. Her eyes are deep water. It is not for Geisha to want. It is not for geisha to feel. Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances, she sings. She entertains you, whatever you want. The rest is shadows, the rest is secret.”― Arthur Golden

“Many Japanese people never really retire—they keep doing what they love for as long as their health allows.” Hector Garcia

When you look at Japanese traditional architecture, you have to look at Japanese culture and its relationship with nature. You can actually live in a harmonious, close contact with nature – this very unique to Japan.” Tadao Ando

Japan is the most intoxicating place for me. Japanese culture fascinated me. the food, the dress, the manners and the traditions. It is the travel experience that has moved me the most.” Roman Coppola

‘There is an expression in Japanese that says that someone who makes things of poor quality is in fact worse than a thief because he doesn’t make things that will last or provide true satisfaction. A thief at least redistributes the wealth of a society.’ ― Andrew Juniper

“Look at London or Paris. They are both filthy. You don’t get that in Tokyo. The proud residents look after their city.’” Tadao Ando

“Japan’s very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don’t think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that’s already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.” Steve Jobs

‘The Dojo system in Japan is very unique. It prepared me not only for wrestling in the states and around the world, but it also prepared me for how to handle myself as an adult in the real world.” Finn Balor

“A very enjoyable meditation on the curious thing called ‘Zen’ -not the Japanese religious tradition but rather the Western click of Zen that is embraced in advertising, self-help books, and much more. Yamada, who is both a scholar of Buddhism and a student of archery, offers refreshing insight into Western stereotypes of Japan and Japanese culture, and how these are received in Japan.” Alexander Gardner

Travel Quotes about exploring Japan

‘Japan, not only a mega-busy city that thrives on electronics and efficiency, actually has an almost sacred appreciation of nature. One must travel outside of Tokyo to truly experience the ‘old Japan’ and more importantly feel these aspects of Japanese culture.’ – Apolo Ohno

If you go to Japan, you have to take the train and go visit different capital cities. Just sticking to one city would be a shame, considering how easy it is to get around. Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto all have different vibes and sights. – Ronny Chieng

“I love Mount Fuji and I think it is my love of the mountains in Japan that led me to seek other mountains around the world.” – Tamae Watanabe

‘I loved the quiet places in Kyoto, the places that held the world within a windless moment. Inside the temples, Nature held her breath. All longing was put to sleep in the stillness, and all was distilled into a clean simplicity. The smell of woodsmoke, the drift of incense; a procession of monks in black-and-gold robes, one of them giggling in a voice yet unbroken; a touch of autumn in the air, a sense of gathering rain.’ ― Pico Iyer

Random quotes about Japan

“I’ve never really wanted to go to Japan. Simply because I don’t like eating fish. And I know that’s very popular out there in Africa.” Britney Spears

“Japanese medical people are traditionally very strange and creepily poetic.” David Cronenberg

“What do Japanese artisans, engineers, Zen philosophy, and cuisine have in common? Simplicity and attention to detail.” Hector Garcia

‘Bathing just once in this hot spring in Shimane prefecture in Tamatsukuri will clear your skin, and continued bathing will cure all your aches and pains. Given such positive results without exception since long ago, people call it the water of the gods.’” Izumi no Kuni Fudoki

‘In Japanese, Ikigai is written by combining the symbols that mean “life” with “to be worthwhile.” Hector Garcia

‘In traditional Japanese Aesthetics, Wabi-Sabi is a world view centred on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The Aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.”

They inevitably pointed toward the abdominal region. When the same question was asked of American children, most pointed at their heads or hearts. Likewise, Japan and the West have commonly held differing views of what is physical power or physical health, with Japan emphasizing the strength of the waist and lower body and Western people admiring upper body power.” H.E. Davey

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