Makoto Shinkai Quotes

“It’s also called ‘sunny rain,’ ‘personal rain,’ or ‘heaven’s tears’ as rain without clouds looks like tears.”

“I didn’t know that I had such emotions within me.”

“Have we...met before, somewhere else?

“Perhaps when it rains again. Well then, we might meet again.”

“It made me happy to have someone react like that to something I made.”

“Even when no thunder sounds And no rain falls, if you but ask me Then I will stay beside you.”

“Yesterday, I had a dream... A dream I have had since long ago. In that dream, we had yet to turn 13. We were in a vast countryside, completely covered with snow. The lights of the houses extended far into the distance, a dazzling sight.”

“I’m just trying to live my life, but it seems as if sadness always piles itself up around me. It’s in my bed, the toothbrush in my bathroom, and the memory of my cellphone.”

“Over the past few years, I’ve wanted to move on, I’ve wanted to take hold of something I couldn’t reach. What that is, I have no idea.”

“Reality is brimming over with beautiful things, scintillating feelings. How many of them have I been missing?”

“In the end, the train stood 2 hours motionless in the middle of nowhere. Every minute seemed like an eternity.”

“At what speed must I live to be able to see you again?”

“We walked on the thick carpet of fresh snow, but did not leave any footprints. And like that... ‘Someday we will be able to watch the cherry blossoms together again’. Both of us, without any doubt... That’s what we thought.”

“Not knowing where such obsessive thoughts were coming from, I simply drowned myself in my work. ”

“Maybe we tried to leave as much memories of ourselves with each other because we knew one day we wouldn’t be together any more.”

“I probably just want to leave a trace of myself behind in this world.”

“I love you. I can’t remember when I fell in love with you but very naturally, I had fallen in love with you before I knew it. The first time I met you, you were a strong and kind boy. You always protected me.”

“I still don’t know what it really means to grow up. However, if I happen to meet you, one day in the future, by then, I want to become someone you can be proud to know.”

“I see why now Tohno-kun is different from the others. Like the rocket shooting off into space, on the loneliest journey to the far end of the solar system.”

“Because he’s always looking at something beyond me. He can never see me. I cried myself to sleep, thinking of him.”

“Akari... Please, don’t wait for me... If you’d just go home.”

“The feelings were still fresh as if it all just happened yesterday.”

“Then one day I realized that my heart was withering, and in it there was nothing but pain. And that my beliefs, that I once held so passionately, had completely disappeared.”

“This is not the place for me. I really think that I don’t belong here. But I don’t know where I want to go, and I don’t have legs that can carry me somewhere.”

“Time felt crept by slowly, with clear malice towards me. All I could do was grip my teeth and try to hold back my tears...”

“I’ve been worried for a long time. I’ve just been doing what I could. I don’t really have much choice.”

“Even if words are lost, tradition should be handed down.”

“Still, even now, I’m fighting my way through. Perhaps it’s a bit dramatic to say, but I’m struggling against life. Wasn’t that what I decided once? To struggle. To live. To breathe and walk. To run. To eat. To bind, musubi. To live an ordinary life so I shed tears over the sights of a perfectly ordinary town.”

“Comin’ together to form a shape, twistin’ and tanglin’, sometimes comin’ undone, breakin’ off, then reunitin’. That’s a braided cord. That’s time. That’s musubi.”

People who’ve lost precious loved ones or places, and who’ve privately decided to “struggle and fight,” even so. People who believe that they’re sure to find something someday, even though it hasn’t happened yet, and who keep reaching out for it. I felt that those feelings needed to be related with an immediacy that differed from the glamour of the movie, and I think that’s why I wrote this book.”

“I feel like I’m always searching for someone, or something.”

“Why do the unremarkable sights of a town that no longer exists make my heart hurt this much?”

“No matter what happens, even if the stars fall, I will live.”

“Even though we were all two who lived as one in the beginning, even though we were all connected, so humans are severed from the cord and fall into this life.”

“I’m not afraid of anything now. I’m not scared of anyone. I’m not lonely anymore. I finally understand. I’m in love. We’re in love. That means we’ll meet again. I’m sure of it. And so I’ll live. I’ll survive this. No matter what happens, even if the stars fall, I will live.”

“Even if the world is cruel, even if all I have is loneliness, I’ll still live with everything I’ve got. Even if this emotion is all I have, I’ll keep struggling.”