Quotes from book
Shōgun

Name: Shōgun
Author: James Clavell

Shōgun is a 1975 novel by James Clavell. It is the first novel of the author's Asian Saga. A major best-seller, by 1990 the book had sold 15 million copies worldwide. Beginning in feudal Japan some months before the critical Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Shōgun gives an account of the rise of the daimyō "Toranaga" . Toranaga's rise to the shogunate is seen through the eyes of the English sailor John Blackthorne, called Anjin by the Japanese, whose fictional heroics are loosely based on the historical exploits of William Adams.

“Isn't man but a blossom taken by wind, and only the mountains and the sea and the stars and this land of the gods everlasting?”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

“You must be patient before you criticize.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Shogun, Part 1

“There is no dignity for either the sufferer or the torturer”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shogun

“We have a saying that time has no single measure, that time can be like frost or lightning or a tear or siege or storm or sunset, or even like a rock.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

“What can I do to help thee?" he asked.
"Believe there is a tomorrow.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

“How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

“First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

“Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun (1975), Ch. 56

“Isn’t it only through laughter that we become one with the gods and thus can endure life and can overcome all the horror and waste and suffering here on earth? …Isn’t it only through laughter we can stay human?”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

“What are clouds, but an excuse for the sky? What is life, but an escape from death?”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Yabu-san's death poem after being ordered to commit seppuku.
Shōgun (1975)

“Love is a Christian word, Anjin-san. Love is a Christian thought, a Christian ideal. We have no word for 'love' as I understand you to mean it. Duty, loyalty, honor, respect, desire, those words and thoughts are what we have, all that we need.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

“.., by universal custom, your enemy is never more polite than when he is planning or has planned your destruction.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

“All his life he had heard legends told among pilots and sailormen about the incredible riches of Portugal's secret empire in the East, how they had by now converted the heathens to Catholicism and so held them in bondage, where gold was as cheap as pig iron, and emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and sapphires as plentiful as pebbles on a beach.
If the Catholic part's true, he told himself, perhaps the rest is too.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun (1975), Ch. 1

“First she studied her husband's flower arrangement. He had chosen the blossom of a single white wild rose and put a single pearl of water on the green leaf, and set it on red stones. Autumn is coming, he was suggesting with the flower, talking through the flower, do not weep for the time of fall, the time of dying when the earth begins to sleep; enjoy the time of beginning again and experience the glorious cool of the autumn air on this summer evening…soon the tear will vanish and the rose, only the stones will remain — soon you and I will vanish and only the stones will remain.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun (1975), Ch. 43

“To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever-increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline — training — is about.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun (1975), Ch. 5

“Blackthorne was suddenly awake.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

First lines, Ch. 1
Shōgun (1975)
Context: Blackthorne was suddenly awake. For a moment he thought he was dreaming because he was ashore and the room unbelievable. It was small and very clean and covered with soft mats. He was lying on a thick quilt and another was thrown over him. The ceiling was polished cedar and the walls were lathes of cedar, in squares, covered with an opaque paper that muted the light pleasantly. Beside him was a scarlet tray bearing small bowls. One contained cold cooked vegetables and he wolfed them, hardly noticing the piquant taste. Another contained a fish soup and he drained that. Another was filled with a thick porridge of wheat or barley and he finished it quickly, eating with his fingers. The water in an odd-shaped gourd was warm and tasted curious — slightly bitter but savory.
Then he noticed the crucifix in its niche.
This house is Spanish or Portuguese, he thought aghast. Is this the Japans? or Cathay?