People From Tokyo

"In terms of being an Asian American writer, I'm mixed race. I think there are issues about being racially mixed that are different that for people who are Japanese-American, or Korean-American, or Chinese-American in background. People don't know where I come from. My father is Japanese. My mother is Latina. There is a line in the play, "I look at you and I don't know what i'm seeing." I think a lot of people look at me and don't know what they're seeing. There are issues that people who are of mixed heritage deal with that are complicated in terms of finding their home in a specific ethnic group."

"“Every great political happening began as a Utopia and ended as a Reality.”"

"The man of the future will be of . Today's races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian- race of the future will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals. [...] Instead of destroying European Jewry, Europe, against its own will, refined and educated this people into a future leader-nation through this artificial selection process. No wonder that this people, that escaped Ghetto-Prison, developed into a spiritual nobility of Europe. Therefore a gracious Providence provided Europe with a new race of nobility by the Grace of Spirit. This happened at the moment when Europe's feudal aristocracy became dilapidated, and thanks to Jewish emancipation."

"There is still time to save Europe from this destiny. The salvation is Pan-Europe: the political and economic merger of all states from Poland to Portugal into a federation of states."

"Europe has become the battlefield of the earth. Its richest regions have been devastated, the flower of its population killed. Civilization is declining, while universal hatred and envy are growing. If Europe learns nothing from history, it will share the further fate of the Holy Roman Empire: it will become, politically and militarily, the chessboard of the world—an object of world politics, whereas once it was its subject."

"The European question is: ‘Can Europe, in its political and economic fragmentation, preserve its peace and independence in the face of the growing non-European world powers – or is it forced, in order to save its existence, to organize itself into a federation of states?’."

"In conducting the affairs of State, I will first clarify my own political stance to the people of Japan and to the members of the Diet. I have no intention of conducting governance for the benefit of specific organizations or individuals; instead I will conduct governance on behalf of the entire people - the ordinary people who live by the sweat of their brows, love their families, wish to improve their own communities and hometowns, and who want to believe in the future of Japan. I promise to make a total commitment to governance that allows everyone to take part, that opens up a new era, and that is aimed at building a society open to everyone and giving each individual a chance to take on challenges."

"Abe is forever Taiwan's good friend."

"This attack (assassination of Shinzō Abe) is an act of brutality that happened during the elections - the very foundation of our democracy - and is absolutely unforgivable."

"What part of 'Japanese Army sex slaves' does Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, have so much trouble understanding and apologizing for? ... These were not commercial brothels. Force, explicit and implicit, was used in recruiting these women. What went on in them was serial rape, not prostitution. The Japanese Army's involvement is documented in the government's own defense files. A senior Tokyo official more or less apologized for this horrific crime in 1993 ... Yesterday, [Abe] grudgingly acknowledged the 1993 quasi-apology, but only as part of a pre-emptive declaration that his government would reject the call, now pending in the United States Congress, for an official apology. America isn't the only country interested in seeing Japan belatedly accept full responsibility. [South] Korea and China are also infuriated by years of Japanese equivocations over the issue."

"The kind of society that Japan should aim at is a society in which the efforts of people are rewarded, a society in which there is no stratification into winners and losers, and a society in which ways of working, learning, and living are diverse and multi-tracked — in other words, a society of opportunity where everyone has a chance to challenge again. If there are people who sense they are facing inequality, it is the role of politics to shed light on them."

"I have just been appointed to the office of Prime Minister. As the first Japanese Prime Minister born in the postwar years, and at a time when Japan has come through a severe period and stands at the start of its development in the new century, I am bracing myself to shoulder the heavy responsibilities of directing the national government. I accept the expectations of the many people of Japan squarely and seriously, and I will stake my life on carrying out my duties."

"Truly, human life is as ephemeral as dew and as brief as lightning."

"Love is the kind of thing that's already happening by the time you notice it, that's how it works, and no matter how old you get, that doesn't change. Except that you can break it up into two entirely distinct types—love where there's an end in sight and love where there isn't. People in love understand that better than anyone. When there's no end in sight, it means you're headed for something huge."

"No matter where you are, you're always a bit on your own, always an outsider."

"Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we've ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves."

"Truly happy memories always live on, shining. Over time, one by one, they come back to life."

"People aren't overcome by situations or outside forces; defeat invades from within."

"As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won't let my spirit be destroyed."

"If we can submit ourselves to that eternal slumber, we can doubtlessly win ourselves peace, if perhaps not happiness, but I had doubts as to when I would be brave enough to take my life. In this state, nature has only become more beautiful than ever to me. You love the beauty of nature, and would no doubt scoff at my contradictions. But nature is beautiful precisely because it falls upon eyes that will not appreciate it for much longer. I have seen, loved, and understood more than others. This alone grants me some measure of solace in the midst of insurmountable sorrows."

"We are human animals and thus fear death as animals do. The so-called “will to live” is nothing more than a different name for animal instinct. I am but one of these human animals, and when I observe my loss of interest in food and women, I realize I have gradually lost this animal instinct. Now I reside in a world of diseased nerves, as translucent as ice."

"Once he had finished writing “The Life of a Stupid Man,” he happened to see a stuffed swan in a secondhand shop. It stood with its head held high, but its wings were yellowed and moth-eaten. As he thought about his life, he felt both tears and mockery welling up inside him. All that lay before him was madness or suicide. He walked down the darkening street alone, determined now to wait for the destiny that would come to annihilate him."

"Question: How about friends—how many do you have? Answer: Oh, my friendships reach over all boundaries of time and space—they are ancient, modern, from the east and from the west. The number probably would not be far short of three hundred and, of these, if I had to name the most celebrated, I suppose it would be Kleist, Mainländer, Weininger. . . . Question: So your friends are all suicides, are they? Answer: No, this is not invariably the case. A man like Montaigne, who advocated and justified suicide, is one of my most esteemed friends. But I cannot bring myself to associate with fellows like Schopenhauer, the pessimist weary of life who did not kill himself."

"When I kill a man, I do it with my sword, but people like you don't use swords. You gentlemen kill with your power, with your money, and sometimes just with your words: you tell people you're doing them a favor. True, no blood flows, the man is still alive, but you've killed him all the same. I don't know whose sin is greater—yours or mine."

"A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life."

"It was the great multiplicity of the hadrons that led to the formulation of the quark model. Without some organizing principle such a large collection of particles seemed unwieldy, and the possibility that they might all be elementary offended those who hold the conviction, or at least the fond wish, that nature should be simple."

"Yoichiro Nambu was one of the most influential theoretical physicists of the twentieth century. His deep and unexpected insights often took years for others to understand and fully appreciate. They include: spontaneous symmetry breaking, for which he was awarded half of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics; the theory of quarks and gluons; and string theory."

"The idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking was introduced into particle physics by Nambu ... in 1960. He suggested that the low mass and low-energy interactions of s could be understood as a reflection of a spontaneously-broken chiral symmetry, would have been exact if the up and down quarks were massless. His suggestion was that light quarks condense in the vacuum, much like the s of superconductivity. When this happens, the ‘hidden’ chiral symmetry causes the pions’ masses to vanish, and fixes their low-energy s to s, s and each other."

"Ideas and techniques known in quantum electrodynamics have been applied to the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory of superconductivity. In an approximation which corresponds to a generalization of the Hartree-Fock fields, one can write down an integral equation defining the self-energy of an electron in an electron gas with phonon and Coulomb interaction. The form of the equation implies the existence of a particular solution which does not follow from perturbation theory, and which leads to the energy gap equation and the quasi-particle picture analogous to Bogolyubov's."

"Storytelling is very difficult. But adding the flavor helps to relay the storytelling, meaning in a cut scene, with a set camera and effects, you can make the users feel sorrow, or make them happy or laugh. This is an easy approach, which we have been doing. That is one point, the second point is that if I make multiple storylines and allow the users to select which story, this might really sacrifice the deep emotion the user might feel; when there's a concrete storyline, and you kind of go along that rail, you feel the destiny of the story, which at the end, makes you feel more moved. But when you make it interactive — if you want multiple stories where you go one way or another — will that make the player more moved when he or she finishes the game? These two points are really the key which I am thinking about, and if this works, I think I could probably introduce a more interactive storytelling method."

"If the player isn't tricked into believing that the world is real, then there's no point in making the game."

"I have to say, even though I received this award, let me state that I will not retire. I will continue to create games as long as I live."

"One fundamental and frequently discussed theme in the further development of is the issue of increasing the number of professional mathematicians who have a solid, technically accurate understanding of the details of inter-universal Teichmüller theory. ... in order to achieve such a solid, technically accurate understanding of the theory, it is necessary to devote a substantial amount of time and effort over a period of roughly half a year to two or three years, depending on various factors. It also requires the participation of professional mathematicians or graduate students who are • sufficiently familiar with numerous more classical theories in ... • sufficiently well motivated and enthusiastic about studying inter-universal Teichmüller theory, and • sufficiently mathematically talented, and who have a • sufficient amount of time to devote to studying the theory."

"[ Total Quality Management (TQM) is] a term first used to describe a management approach to quality improvement. Since then, TQM has taken on many meanings. Simply put, it is a management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction. TQM is based on all members of an organization participating in improving processes, products, services and the culture in which they work. The methods for implementing this approach are found in the teachings of such quality leaders as Philip B. Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, Kaoru Ishikawa and Joseph M. Juran."

"The fact must be expressed as data, but there is a problem in that the correct data is difficult to catch. So that I always say "When you see the data, doubt it!" "When you see the measurement instrument, doubt it! ... For example, if the methods such as sampling, measurement, testing and chemical analysis methods were incorrect, data ... to measure true characteristics and in an unavoidable case, using statistical sensory test and express them as data."

"Ishikawa, one of the most famous experts of quality control, mentions the following six points as the unique characteristics of Japanese quality control: CWQC, education and training for quality control, quality control circle, nationwide promotion activities 16 valuation system of quality control, and utilization of statistical skills..."

"In management, the first concern of the company is the happiness of people who are connected with it. If the people do not feel happy and cannot be made happy, that company does not deserve to exist... The first order of business is to let the employees have adequate income. Their humanity must be respected, and they must be given an opportunity to enjoy their work and lead a happy life."

"90 percent of all problems can be solved by using the techniques of data stratification, histograms, and control charts. Among the causes of nonconformance, only one-fifth or less are attributable to the workers."

"There is so much to be learned by studying how Dr. Ishikawa managed to accomplish so much during a single lifetime. In my observation, he did so by applying his natural gifts in an exemplary way. He was dedicated to serving society rather than serving himself. His manner was modest, and this elicited the cooperation of others. He followed his own teachings by securing facts and subjecting them to rigorous analysis. He was completely sincere, and as a result was trusted completely."

"As for the epistemological dimension, we draw on Michael Polanyi's (1966) distinction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is personal, context-specific, and therefore hard to formalize and communicate. Explicit or "codified" knowledge, on the other hand, refers to knowledge that is transmittable in formal, systematic language."

"Ikujiro Nonaka and his co-workers created a consistent body of theory concerning knowledge creation in organizations based on four main ideas:"

"Why is ultimately a question of purpose: Why do we exist? In most organizations, people are not encouraged to keep asking questions."

"Companies and leaders who treat knowledge management as just another branch of IT don’t understand how human beings learn and create... Unlike land, capital, energy, labor, and technology — the conventional “inputs” into business practice — knowledge is innately self-renewing. “It is produced and consumed simultaneously. Its value increases with use, rather than being depleted as with industrial goods or commodities. Above all, it is a resource created by humans acting in relationship with one another."

"In the act of creating, people argue. They have heated dialogue. They get upset! Without real exchange, you can’t create knowledge. Knowledge creation is a human activity"

"Any organization that deals with a changing environment ought not only to process information efficiently, but also create information and knowledge."

"In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge."

"The barrenness of sand, as it is usually pictured, was not caused by simple dryness, but apparently was due to the ceaseless movement that made it inhospitable to all living things. What a difference compared with the dreary way human beings clung together year in year out."

"Only a shipwrecked person who has just escaped drowning could understand the psychology of someone who breaks out in laughter just because he is able to breathe."

"Suddenly a sorrow the color of dawn welled up in him. They might as well lick each other's wounds. But they would lick forever, and the wounds would never heal, and in the end their tongues would be worn away."

"It goes on, terrifyingly repetitive. One could not do without repetition in life, like the beating of the heart, but it was also true that the beating of the heart was not all there was to life."