The labor into which a heart has poured its whole love--where will it have its say, to excite and inspire, and when?
Yasunari KawabataRead
I wonder what the retirement age is in the novel business. The day you die.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the concept of work and life, suggesting that for some, the true end of professional engagement is death.
In this quote by Yasunari Kawabata, the idea of retirement is provocatively redefined. Rather than adhering to a conventional age where one stops working, he implies that for those deeply engaged in their craft, their work continues until the end of their life. This challenges societal norms surrounding retirement and emphasizes the passion that can exist within one's work, blurring the line between professional and personal fulfillment.
Themes
RetirementWorkPassionLifePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used during a speech about pursuing one's passion in a career.
More from Yasunari Kawabata
All quotes βThe 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 KawabataRead
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 KawabataRead
The winter moon becomes a companion, the heart of the priest, sunk in meditation upon religion and philosophy, there in the mountain hall, is engaged in a delicate interplay and exchange with the moon; and it is this of which the poet sings.
Yasunari KawabataRead
Put your soul in the palm of my hand for me to look at, like a crystal jewel. I'll sketch it in words.
Yasunari KawabataRead
Lunatics have no age. If we were crazy, you and I, we might be a great deal younger.
Yasunari KawabataRead
Similar quotes
I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotism was only good for legends; it was bad for their prose and made them write bad poetry. If you are going to be a great patriot i.e. loyal to any existing order of government (not one who wishes to destroy the existing for something better) you want to be killed early if your life and works won't stink.
Ernest HemingwayRead
Because your brain uses information from the areas around the blind spot to make a reasonable guess about what the blind spot would see if only it weren't blind, and then your brain fills in the scene with this information. That's right, it invents things, creates things, makes stuff up! It doesn't consult you about this, doesn't seek your approval. It just makes its best guess about the nature of the missing information and proceeds to fill in the scene.
Daniel GilbertRead
Every myth is psychologically symbolic. Its narratives and images are to be read, therefore, not literally, but as metaphors.
Joseph CampbellRead
The accent of a man's native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse and in a republican government more than in any other.
James MadisonRead
Do you feel loved by God because you believe he makes much of you, or because you believe he frees you and empowers you to enjoy making much of him?
John PiperRead