Midlife crisis begins sometime in your 40s, when you look at your life and think, 'Is this all?' And it ends about 10 years later, when you look at your life again and think, 'Actually, this is pretty good.' — Donald Richie Copy Share Image
“Leo Rubinfein over to ask questions for his book. He asked me what I most regretted, having lived half a century here, and witnessed all the change. I said that I most regretted the loss of a kind of symbiosis between people and where they lived, a kind of agreement to respect each other. I again mention the paradigm—the builders… — Donald Richie Copy Share
“When I started to learn how to read, I discovered the same kind of power. I could create an environment that I didn't have, and I could order this environment in the way that I couldn't in my actual life. Then, when I learned to write, I learned that I could do this not only for myself, but for other… — Donald Richie Copy Share
“What do I want to be when I grow up? An attractive role would be that of the bunjin. He is the Japanese scholar who wrote and painted in the Chinese style, a literatus, something of a poetaster - a pose popular in the 18th century. I, however, would be a later version, someone out of the end of the… — Donald Richie Copy Share
“In the same way both Lincoln and the Japanese regard people. These are also a kind of currency. A man is worth what he… — Donald Richie Copy Share Image
“As always, so polite that he is at the beginning distant, and yet always determined. This is because he has uses for us all.… — Donald Richie Copy Share Image
Midlife crisis begins sometime in your 40s, when you look at your life and think, 'Is this all?' And it ends about 10 years… — Donald Richie Copy Share Image
“What happened was that sometimes I was, from a young age, put in the theater to watch movies because they kept me quiet and… — Donald Richie Copy Share Image
“Having lived most of my life in the most crowded city in the world, I have become used to this constant physical proximity. Wherever… — Donald Richie Copy Share Image
“Late, going home, I pass a group of squatting high schoolers. One of the boys, obviously seeking to impress the girls, says that foreigners… — Donald Richie Copy Share Image
“In the bath the attitude toward sex is representative. No people have it more firmly in place. They are a bit puritanical sometimes, and… — Donald Richie Copy Share Image
“Owen is utterly out of whatever closet he may once have been in. Is resident Concerned Gay Medical Personnel, or some such. This being… — Donald Richie Copy Share Image
“Here we would notice that what we would call Japanese aesthetics (in contrast to Western aesthetics) is more concerned with process than with product,… — Donald Richie Copy Share Image
