Quote #4
On the status of politicians in Japan: 'in Japan people avoid going into politics. I was really looked down on in literary circles [when I went into politics].'
More from Shintaro Ishihara
- On political parties: 'A party is a political tool. If it's no longer useful, it should be crumpled up and thrown away.'
- Regarding the famous novelist Yukio Mishima: 'Japan is not the same since with him gone, but his politics were a joke.'
- About himself: 'I'm an existentialist--freedom and passion are the most important things to me. I was horribly disappointed when I learned …
- About the United States: 'Fifty years of subservience to the interest of the United States has deprived the Japanese of a national purpose …
- Regarding the Rape of Nanjing: 'They say we made a holocaust there, but that is not true. It is a lie made up by the Chinese.'
- In response to China's first successful launch of a man in space: 'The Chinese are ignorant, so they are overjoyed. That spacecraft was an …
- 'Let them bomb Japan with that nasty missile. Their missile cannot load a nuclear warhead.'
- Regarding the bomb-planting at the private residence of Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Tanaka: 'A bomb was planted there. I think it was d…