“It often seemed to me, in fact, that all the tinky amusement-park surfaces and chipper reassurances of the public world here were almost a way of keeping people quiet; or at least of providing them with pre-shrunk pleasures so that they would not seek out unscheduled dreams of their own- let alone acknowledge any kind of sadness. Thus all the happy communal rites- from Disneyland tours to cherry blossom parties- seemed ways of providing safe, user-friendly forms of organized happiness, satisfaction guaranteed, a little like the bright baubles that a parent might offer a child to prevent him from crying. This was the social contract in Japan: forfeit your individuality and you would receive a life of stability and comfort; give yourself over to Japan and it would never let you down. It was like a kind of emotional welfare system: give up your freedom and you would receive a life so convenient that you’d hardly notice the freedom you’d relinqished”

Pico Iyer (author of the much better known Video Nights in Kathmandu) in “The Lady and the Monk”.

This is a fairly typical extract of the book, which I would recommend. It doesn’t tell you anything you wouldn’t know if you’d been in Japan for a year or two and kept your eyes open (unlike Donald Ritchie, for example, who can provide totally original insights for almost anyone), but it is all written with such style and with such human feeling that it does make you take another look at everything around you. It also avoids quoting too many well known authors or other tired old cliches of Japan,  or at least gets quickly past that and back to its story. Unlike this extract, most of the book is actually quite personal.

I seem to have started a whole blog full of similar choice Japanese quotations, so please have a look at Quote Japan.