Takashi Miike Quotes

I think I do overshare, and I sometimes marvel that I do it. But it's sort of - in a way, it's my way of trying to understand myself.

I liked the fact that I was forced to get inside of my emotions and to really try to figure out a lot of what I was going through.

Whenever I'm trying to understand people that I don't understand, or things in people or even in myself, I'll say, 'When did this negativity get here?' I try to think back to how I was raised to deal with things, and then consider how the person that I'm dealing with grew up.

When I have these negative thoughts and feelings, I like to dig into them because I like to get under them and see what's in there.

Everybody needs to take some time, in some way, to quiet themselves and really listen to their heart.

It seemed inevitable to try to address my feelings about everything that had happened. To a certain degree, it felt cathartic, but it's less cathartic to me than it is illuminating and helping me navigate my own feelings.

When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.

Rather than going after our walls and barriers with a sledgehammer, we pay attention to them. With gentleness and honesty, we move closer to those walls. We touch them and smell them and get to know them well. We begin a process of acknowledging our aversions and our cravings. We become familiar with the strategies and beliefs we use to build the walls: What are the stories I tell myself? What repels me and what attracts me? We start to get curious about what’s going on.

I don't want to deconstruct what I do.

The very purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. Rather, we must criticize ourselves. How much am I doing about my anger? About my attachment, about my hatred, about my pride, my jealousy? These are the things which we must check in daily life.

Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?

The uninvestigated life is not worth living. I don't want to live that way.

How can you spend hours every day trying in small ways to figure out who you are, then have a near-stranger give you a sentence of yourself that says it better than you ever could?

We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what we honestly are.

I started digging into parts of myself that I probably ignore and don't really get to express because Common is an artist that is conscious and is aware and is trying to put a positive energy to the world.

Great fiction shows us not how to conduct our behavior but how to feel. Eventually, it may show us how to face our feelings and face our actions and to have new inklings about what they mean. A good novel of any year can initiate us into our own new experience.

Direct your attention inward. Have a look inside yourself. What kind of thoughts is your mind producing? What do you feel? Direct your attention into the body. Is there any tension? Once you detect that there is a low level of unease, the background static, see in what way you are avoiding, resisting, or denying life-by denying the Now.

Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.

We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy: they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next.

Let your resistance, judgements, angers and fears inform you.

...because in a way it happened to someone else. I don't really speak that person's language anymore, and when I think about her, she embarrasses me sometimes, but I don't want to forget her, I don't want to pretend she never existed. So before I start forgetting, I have to get down exactly who she was, and exactly how she felt about everything. She was me a lot longer than I've been me so far.

Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.

Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.

Examine from time to time what are the dominant passions of your soul, and having ascertained this, mold your life, so that in thought, word, and deed you may as far as possible counteract them.