James Clavell

I send you my laughter. May Buddha bless thee and thine.

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? Like tonight, watching all those brave men meet their fate here, on this shore, on this gentle night, through a karma ordained a thousand lifetimes ago, or perhaps even one. Isn’t it only through laughter we can stay human?

A wise man prepares for treachery.

Oare ce-s nourii
Daca nu o justificare a cerului?
Oare ce-i viata
Daca nu o amanare a mortii?

Let's compete freely. Goddam tariffs! Free trade and free seas — that's what's right!

Beyond the castle walls, the city lay in almost total darkness. Above, the moon was pallid and misted. It was a brooding, darkling night. And, it seemed to him, doom walked the heavens.

This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity.

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

Blackthorne, beside the gates, was still turmoiled by his boundless joy at her reprieve and he remembered how his own will had been stretched that night of his near-seppuku, when he had had to get up as a man and walk home as a man unsupported, and became samurai. And he watched her, despising the need for this courage, yet understanding it, even honoring it.

Why is it there is always such violence between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law? Doesn't daughter-in-law, in time, become mother-in-law? Why does she then always treat her own daughter-in-law to a lashing tongue and make her life a misery, and why does that girl do the same in her turn? Doesn't anyone learn?

those who are young will take risks which even the devil would pass by.

Listen, if you want peace you must learn to drink cha from an empty cup.

All comes to him who waits — and works.

It's a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his mouth for the world to see, another in his breast to show to his special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except to himself alone, hidden only God knows where.

Ce minunat, ce minunat de simplu e să poți spune că dragostea te aduce aproape de Dumnezeu.