Issa Quotes

What a strange thing! to be alive beneath cherry blossoms.

Summer night-- even the stars are whispering to each other.

It was brave," countered Issa. "It was rare. It was love, and it was beautiful.

Never forget: we walk on hell, gazing at flowers.

O snail Climb Mount Fuji But slowly, slowly!

Here I'm here- the snow falling.

Where there are humans, You'll find flies, And Buddhas.

In the cherry blossom's shade there's no such thing as a stranger.

The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.

In this world We walk on the roof of hell Gazing at flowers

The world of dew is the world of dew. And yet, and yet--

Is it good or bad?" she asked Issa. The wrong question, she knew. She just couldn't help herself. "It's both, sweet girl," said Issa. "like everything.

Arise from sleep, old cat, And with great yawns and stretchings... Amble out for love

Don't weep, insects -- Lovers, stars themselves, Must part.

My kingdom for caffeine,” she mumbled, making prayer hands up at the ceiling. When, however, in the next second, Issa entered with tea, Zuzana was not grateful. “Coffee, I meant coffee,” she told the ceiling, as if the universe were a waiter that had gotten her order wrong.

In the city fields Contemplating cherry-trees... Strangers are like friends

Even in warmest glow how cold my shadow

A world of grief and pain Flowers bloom Even then

Reflected in the dragonfly's eye -- mountains.

On the Death of his Child Dew Evaporates And all our world is dew...so dear, So fresh, so fleeting

All the time I pray to Buddha I keep on killing mosquitoes.

Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t want to die alone, but spending quality time with myself 60 to 70 percent of the day is my idea of mecca.

before the gate -- my walking stick's made a river of melting snow

Giddy grasshopper Take care...do not leap and crush These pearls of dewdrop

Don't kill!... The fly is asking you To save his life By rubbing his hands together

This dewdrop world Is but a dewdrop world And yet —

Not gifted with genius but honestly holding his experiences deep in his heart, he kept his simplicity and humanity.

Hi! My little hut Is newly-thatched I see... Blue morning-glories

Don't worry spiders, I keep house casually.

hey sparrows no pissing on my old winter quilt!

Where there are humans, You'll find flies, And Buddhas.

As Ralph Ellison once posited, we’re invisible to them. We’re simply not on their radar. As long as the people who are in charge aren’t us, things will never change.

Girls, New Girl, 2 Broke Girls. What do they all have in common? The universal gender classification, “girl,” is white. In all three of these successful series, a default girl (or two) is implied and she is white. That is the norm and that is what is acceptable. Anything else is niche.

Dry creek glimpsed by lightning

(If I could go back in time and slap all of the idiocy out of my mouth, I would be a busy time traveler.)

The basis of art is change in the universe.

When you are composing a verse, let there not be a hair's breadth separating your mind from what you write. Quickly say what is in your mind; never hesitate a moment.

Poetry is a fireplace in summer or a fan in winter.

You guys know about vampires? . . . You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist?” And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.

Back home, Mama always made us laugh. She wasn’t funny in the way Issa was. Issa’s funny is like an elephant, impossible to miss, you know when he wants to make you laugh. But Mama’s funny is more like a cat, slinking around, hiding out in corners, brushing up on you by surprise.

The advantages of black hair are infinite.

A world of dew and within every dewdrop a world of struggle. ISSA

Karou was plagued by the notion that she wasn’t whole. She didn’t know what this meant, but it was a lifelong feeling, a sensation akin to having forgotten something. She’d tried describing it to Issa once, when she was a girl. “It’s like you’re standing in the kitchen, and you know you went in there for a reason, but you can’t think of what that reason is, no matter what.

The hair hierarchy rates worth by length and texture of hair. The longer, the silkier and more European your hair, the higher your worth. The shorter, kinkier, and more African your hair? Kill thyself.

I like that he calls her Issa, which I’m assuming is short for Allysa. I think about my own name and if I’ll ever find a guy who could shorten it into a sickeningly cute nickname. Illy. Nope. Not the same

A world of grief and pain, but the flowers bloom even then

I needed to see more from my movies than the extremely tragic black woman, or the magic helpless Negro, or the many black men in dresses.

Why don’t people understand that nobody wants to hear what they should have done when something has already happened?

Winter rain on moss soundlessly recalls those happy bygone days

Food is my destination, my journey, my reward, my friend

STOP TREATING DOPE PEOPLE LIKE THEY'RE REGULAR

It all made sense: my shyness, all the times I was dismissed for not being “black enough,” my desire to reframe the images of black film and television, which I started to do when I created a series in college called Dorm Diaries, my inability to dance—these were all symptoms of my Awkward Blackness.

Missing you hurts, loving you kills, being with u is a crime, and i'm still fine with that.

何もないが 心安なよ 涼しさよ Ne possédant rien comme mon cœur est léger comme l’air est frais

The children imitating the cormorants, Are more wonderful Than the real cormorants

His face looked like God said, “I just . . . I can’t. I’m tired. Let me see what I can do with these leftovers.

the snail gets up and goes to bed with very little fuss

Flowers scattering - The water we thirst for Far off, in the mist.

The smell of Black & Milds evokes a nostalgia for the hoodrat childhood of which I was robbed.

Issa knelt down in front of her, taking her hands in his. “Until the end of time, I will love you. You are the moon in my endless night. I have never abandoned this world, even when I desperately wanted to, and I will never leave you, either.

The discussion of representation is one that has been repeated over and over again, and the solution has always been that it’s up to us to support, promote, and create the images that we want to see.

Issa was one of Japan’s “Great Four” haiku masters. The heartbroken poet wrote of his inability to accept impermanence: “I concede that water can never return to its source, nor scattered blossoms to their branch, but even so the bonds of affection are hard to break.

Look, don’t kill that fly! It is making a prayer to you By rubbing its hands and feet

Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t want to die alone, but spending quality time with myself 60 to 70 percent of the day is my idea of mecca. However,

Isn’t that the realest shit ever?

Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die

Don’t imitate me; it’s as boring as the two halves of a melon.

Before I arrived, who were the people living here? Only violets remain.

why such careful consideration snail? —KOBAYASHI ISSA (1763–1828)

sleeping and rising always with your shell! oh snail —KOBAYASHI ISSA (1763–1828)

How hard is it to portray a three-dimensional woman of color on television or in film? I’m surrounded by them. They’re my friends. I talk to them every day. How come Hollywood won’t acknowledge us? Are we a joke to them? Now, having been in the industry for a couple of years, I’m not entirely sure it’s blatant racism, as I had once assumed. It’s more complicated than that. As Ralph Ellison once posited, we’re invisible to them. We’re simply not on their radar. As long as the people who are in charge aren’t us, things will never change. Girls

Amaat conceived of light, and conceiving of light also necessarily conceived of not-light, and light and darkness sprang forth. This was the first Emanation, EtrepaBo; Light/Darkness. The other three, implied and necessitated by that first, are EskVar (Beginning/Ending), IssaInu (Movement/Stillness), and VahnItr (Existence/Nonexistence). These four Emanations variously split and recombined to create the universe. Everything that is, emanates from Amaat.

Black men, I discovered, are just as obsessed with hair as black women are. His dating history included various ethnicities, many of whose hair could have been packaged and put on the shelf at a Korean beauty salon. That silky shit.

But when he saw that Adam had no female companion, no society, for there was no such created, and that he wondered at the other animals which were male and female, he laid him asleep, and took away one of his ribs, and out of it formed the woman; whereupon Adam knew her when she was brought to him, and acknowledged that she was made out of himself. Now a woman is called in the Hebrew tongue Issa; but the name of this woman was Eve, which signifies the mother of all living.

the story of Issa, the eighteenth-century Haiku poet from Japan. Through a succession of sad events, his wife and all his five children died. Grieving each time, he went to the Zen Master and received the same consolation: “Remember the world is dew.” Dew is transient and ephemeral. The sun rises and the dew is gone. So too is suffering and death in this world of illusion, so the mistake is to become too engaged. Remember the world is dew. Be more detached, and transcend the engagement of mourning that prolongs the grief. After one of his children died, Issa went home unconsoled, and wrote one of his most famous poems. Translated into English it reads,      The world is dew.      The world is dew.      And yet.      And yet.

There are reality shows for gold-diggers while televised Bridezillas and messy infidelities get sky-high ratings. To think that amidst all the infidelity, Americans actually had the nerve to try to get all sanctimonious when the gay marriage debate surfaced. Shut up! My

Online content and new media are changing our communities and changing the demand for and accessibility of that content. The discussion of representation is one that has been repeated over and over again, and the solution has always been that it’s up to us to support, promote, and create the images that we want to see. Ten years ago, making that suggestion would have required way more work than it does now, and my love of taking shortcuts probably wouldn’t allow me to make any dents on that front. But with ever-evolving, new accessible technologies, there are so many opportunities to reclaim our images. There’s no excuse not to, and I’ve never felt more purposeful in my quest to change the landscape of television.

never forget: we walk on hell - gazing at flowers.

These Not-Black Blacks are typically Caribbean, African, not American, and/or mixed Americans.

KEY PHRASES: “I don’t know”; “Really?”; “Where’s the chicken?”; “Cast down your bucket.

«¿No es el cuerpo el que, a través de las vías de sus dudas y de sus certidumbres, es el pasaje hacia el polvo?»

Everybody wants to be hood, but nobody really wants to be hood. In

I don’t want to die alone, but spending quality time with myself 60 to 70 percent of the day is my idea of mecca. However,

I don't like being limited. This is my worst nightmare. I want to be able to flex other muscles and see what else I can do.

I needed to see more from my movies than the extremely tragic black woman, or the magic helpless Negro, or the many black men in dresses. You

If a company is only as good as its weakest employee, then what does that say about you and the job you hold? For

I’m not the jealous type, but I’m the jealous type.

How reluctantly the bee emerges from deep within the peony

With dewdrops dripping, I wish somehow I could wash this perishing world

In pale moonlight the wisteria’s scent comes from far away

My comfort with food simply outweighed my determination to be a smaller size.

لقد قررت على فراق، قررت على رحيل، فمن دونك انا، لست سوى طير جريح، لم أعد باستطاعتي أن أكون سعيد ولم أعد باستطاعتي أن أكون قوي ، و انتي بعيدة مدى عن حبي الوحيد، ساقتل قلبي و ادمر حبي و احطم حلمي فبدونك انا لن أعيش .

Educated black women are too high maintenance, high strung, and independent—they don’t need men. There is a widening gap between the education of black women and men, which doesn’t leave very many “suitable” suitors. Unfortunately, the higher one’s degree, as a black woman, the lower your chances are of getting married. Add to the con pile the stereotypes of being loud, complicated, and difficult. Black women, your reputation sucks. Asian

En mí todo se embellece para ti. El corazón sobretodo. Al escuchar su enorme palpitar, tan largo y tan profundo, se pensaría que se ahoga en sí mismo. Después entonces ¿quién ha osado decir que nosotros no nacimos juntos?

But there’s a big difference between awareness and acceptance. Which is why “this world of dew / Is a world of dew” isn’t the heart of Issa’s poem. Its true, thrumming center is those three unassuming words: But even so. But even so, says Issa, I’ll long for my daughter forever. But even so, I’ll never be whole again. But even so, I cannot accept, will not accept, do you hear me as I whisper that I do not accept the brutal terms of life and death on this beautiful planet. But even so, but even so, but even so.

promise.” The Not-Black Black: They’re quick to say, “Oh, I’m not black.” My favorite type of Not-Black Blacks claims to be Native American. “That’s why my hair is so good,” they’ll say. But ask them what tribe and they’ll either fall short or claim “Cherokee.

KIAAB Blacks tends to be super-pessimistic about our future and resist anything new. They are happy to list everything that black people don’t do. THE APPROACH: The Awkward Black is too outside-the-box for the Know-It-All About Blacks Black to comprehend. If you’re black and say something a Know-It-All disagrees with, be prepared to be called white or whitewashed. For the general population, the KIAAB Black probably doesn’t want to associate with you. He/She is content with sitting back and judging you. There’s literally nothing you can do about it. Nothing.

When I was a teenager, for example, others questioned my blackness because some of the life choices I made weren’t considered to be “black” choices: joining the swim team when it is a known fact that “black people don’t swim,” or choosing to become a vegetarian when blacks clearly love chicken.

Then as the decade made way for the new millennium, cable exploded with its own original content and film studios began to obsess over international box office sales. Somewhere along the line, we became unrelatable and invisible to the Hollywood system. Our images and diverse portrayals just weren’t worth the dollars and effort anymore. The images I had grown up with and grown so accustomed to seeing slowly disappeared, and it seemed to happen all at once.

It’s a foolishly long night!” I say in the long night