The Great Passage Quotes

“No matter how poor he was at communicating with people, with books he could engage in deep, quiet dialogue.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“A dictionary is a ship that crosses the sea of words,” said Araki, with a sense that he was laying bare his innermost soul. “People travel on it and gather the small points of light floating on the dark surface of the waves. They do this in order to tell someone their thoughts accurately, using the best possible words. Without dictionaries, all any of us could do is linger before the vastness of the deep.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Words and the human heart that creates them are absolutely free, with no connection to the powers that be.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“What lies deep inside the heart can be a mystery even to oneself.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“However much food you ate, as long as you were alive, you would experience hunger again, and words, however you managed to capture them, would disperse again like phantoms into the void.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Any dictionary, no matter how well made, was destined to go out of date. Words were living things.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Gathering a huge number of words together with as much accuracy as possible was like finding a mirror without distortion. The less distortion in the word-mirror, the greater chance that when you opened up to someone and revealed your inner self, your feelings and thoughts would be reflected there with clarity and depth. You could look together in the mirror and laugh, weep, get angry.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Love (noun): a feeling of special affection for a particular member of the opposite sex that causes exhilaration and the desire to be alone with that person and share a sense of emotional intimacy, including, if possible, physical intimacy, so that one fluctuates between a state of despair when unfulfilled and, on rare occasions of fulfillment, one of delight.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Awakening to the power of words—the power not to hurt others but to protect them, to tell them things, to form connections with them—had taught her to probe her own mind and inclined her to make allowances for other people’s thoughts and feelings.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Words were necessary for creation. Kishibe imagined the primordial ocean that covered the surface of the earth long ago—a soupy, swirling liquid in a state of chaos. Inside every person there was a similar ocean. Only when that ocean was struck by the lightning of words could all come into being. Love, the human heart . . . Words gave things form so they could rise out of the dark sea.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“If she even so much as smiled at him, he would be thrilled to death. This was no mere figure of speech: having never gotten much exercise, Majime had little faith in his cardiovascular system and was not sure that his heart could withstand the impact of a Kaguya smile.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Reading the dictionary could awaken you to new meanings of commonly used words, meanings of surprising breadth and depth.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“A dictionary is a repository of human wisdom not because it contains an accumulation of words but because it embodies true hope, wrought over time by indomitable spirits.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“These people so entranced by dictionaries were outside the bounds of Nishioka’s understanding. He couldn’t even be sure they thought of their work as work. They spent huge sums of their own money on materials, ignoring the limitations of their salaries. Sometimes they stayed in the office looking up things and never even realized they had missed the last train home. They seemed filled with a mad fever. And yet you couldn’t really say they loved dictionaries, either—not given the way they studied and analyzed them with such stunning concentration. There was something almost vindictive in their obsession, as if they were going after an enemy, getting the goods on him. How could they be so wrapped up in making dictionaries? He found their obsession mysterious, with even a whiff of bad taste. And yet—if only Nishioka had something that meant as much to him as dictionaries did to Majime and the rest. Then surely he would see everything differently. He would see a world of such dazzling brightness it would hurt.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“And however perfectionist you tried to be, in the end words were alive, in constant flux. No dictionary could ever achieve true completion.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“What if the interior of a room mirrors the interior of its inhabitant?”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“A dictionary is a ship that crosses the sea of words,” said Araki, with a sense that he was laying bare his innermost soul. “People travel on it and gather the small points of light floating on the dark surface of the waves. They do this in order to tell someone their thoughts accurately, using the best possible words. Without dictionaries, all any of us could do is linger before the vastness of the deep.” “We”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Ease up, Majime, he thought. Otherwise everyone around you is going to end up choking. Expectations and demands that weigh too heavy are poison. You’ll be worn down in the end, when you don’t get what you’re looking for. You’ll wind up exhausted, resigned, and alone, unable to trust anyone.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Someone who wouldn’t be in a hurry to interfere with her world and what she wants to do. I think it’s better if two people don’t expect too much of each other. Live and let live.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Expectations and demands that weigh too heavy are poison. You’ll be worn down in the end, when you don’t get what you’re looking for. You’ll wind up exhausted, resigned, and alone, unable to trust anyone.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“You cannot use a word properly if you don’t know precisely what it means.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Human beings had created words to communicate with the dead, and with those yet unborn.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“The dictionary’s very flaws made the exertions and enthusiasm of its compilers real to his imagination. The vast array of words—entry words, definitions, examples—was cold and impersonal at a glance, yet the book as a whole was the result of people puzzling over their choices.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“What’s your hobby, Majime?” Nishioka boldly asked, searching for a friendly overture. A bit of wood ear mushroom was sticking out of a corner of Majime’s mouth. He swallowed it and considered the question before answering. “If I had to pick something, I guess it would be watching people get on the escalator.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“behind”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“They had made a ship. A ship bearing the souls of the people traveling from ancient times to the future, across the ocean rich with words.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“The memories of the professor were proof that even after life functions cease and the body turns to ash, beyond physical death, the soul lives on. In order to speak of the professor’s aura, his speech and behavior, in order to share their memories and pass them on, words were indispensable.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“Sometimes words were useless. No matter how they called out to him, Araki and Mrs. Matsumoto had been unable to tether the professor’s life to this earth. And yet the professor wasn’t completely gone, either. Because of words, the most important part of him was lodged in their hearts.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“He had brought purifying salt with him to scatter at the doorstep, following custom, but inwardly he cursed the idea. If the professor should choose to come back and watch over them, he would be only too glad.”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“A dictionary is a repository of human wisdom not because it contains an accumulation of words but because it embodies true hope, wrought”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage