Kaguya Quotes

Helping each other is humanity's greatest invention. Use it with pride.

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.

But he wasn't trying to get Kaguya in his clutches -- he sincerely wanted a relationship with her, that's all. If she was willing.

Long ago... someone who'd come back from here used to sing it on the Moon. When you put on the robe of the Moon, you lose all memory of this place. All grief and sadness are gone. But when she sang that song, tears would come to her eyes. And for some reason, that magic took my heart, too. And now I understand exactly how she felt. And why I yearned for here, and broke the rules... and maybe why I was sent down here. -Princess Kaguya, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

In that moment, the difference between agaru and noboru became clear. Words that had been floating in chaos swiftly grouped themselves into interlocking sets. In his mind’s eye he saw an agaru tower and a noboru tower, each one soaring high in perfect, beautiful balance. Forgetful of Kaguya’s presence in the room, forgetful of her invitation, he pursued the thoughts unfolding in his mind at bewildering speed. Controlling his excitement, he murmured, “That’s it. That’s it.” Agaru emphasized the place reached by upward movement, whereas noboru emphasized the process of upward movement. When inviting someone to “come on up for a cup of tea,” you used agaru, never noboru. That’s because the focus was on reaching a place suitable for drinking tea—the interior of the house, a step up from the outside—rather than the process of moving indoors. For “to climb a mountain,” the reverse was true; the correct verb was definitely noboru, as the emphasis was on the action of physically moving up the face of the mountain toward the summit, not just the moment of reaching the summit. Then what about that expression ten ni mo noboru kimochi (a feeling of rising to heaven)? Majime ruminated on the feeling he had experienced a moment before. Noboru was correct, not agaru, because his joy still had room to grow; he hadn’t yet attained heaven itself. Then he thought of something else.