1
If the Emperor had not delivered his [15 August 1945] address urging the Japanese people to lay down their swords–if that speech had been a call instead for the Honorable Death of the Hundred Million–those people on that street in SÅshigaya probably would have done what they were told and died. And probably I would have done likewise. The Japanese see self-assertion as immoral and self-sacrifice as the sensible course to take in life. We were accustomed to this teaching and had never thought to question it. .Akira Kurosawa
2
Although human beings are incapable of talking about themselves with total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth while pretending to be other people. They often reveal much about themselves in a very straightforward way. I am certain that I did. There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.Akira Kurosawa
3
In the pre-war era when itinerant home-remedy salesmen still wandered the country, they had a traditional patter for selling a potion that was supposed to be particularly effective in treating burns and cuts. A toad with four legs in front and six behind would be placed in a box with mirrors lining the four walls. The toad, amazed at its own appearance from every angle, would break into an oily sweat. This sweat would be collected and simmered for 3, 721 days while being stirred with a willow branch. The result was the marvelous potion. When writing about myself, I feel something like that toad in the box.Akira Kurosawa
4
But I prefer to think of my brother as a negative strip of film that led to my own development as a positive image.Akira Kurosawa
5
Granting that there is some truth to the theory that defects in society give rise to the emergence of criminals, I still maintain that those who use this theory as a defense of criminality are overlooking the fact that there are many people in this defective society who survive without resorting to crime. The argument to the contrary is pure sophistry.Akira Kurosawa