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Kyoko: [after the rest of the family had left] I think they should have stayed a bit longer.
Noriko: But they're busy.
Kyoko: They're selfish. Demanding things and leaving like this.
Noriko: They have their own affairs.
Kyoko: But you have yours too. They're selfish.
Noriko: But Kyoko...
Kyoko: Wanting her clothes right after her death. I felt so sorry for poor mother. Even strangers would have been more considerate!
Noriko: But look Kyoko. At your age I thought so too. But children do drift away from their parents. A woman has her own life, apart from her parents, when she becomes Shige's age. She meant no harm I'm sure. They have to look after their own lives.
Kyoko: I wonder: I won't ever be like that. Then what's the point of family?
Noriko: But children become like that, gradually.
Kyoko: Then... you, too?
Noriko: I may become like that in spite of myself.
Kyoko: Isn't life disappointing?
Noriko: Yes, it is.
-
Shukichi Hirayama: [talking to Tomi about leaving the hotel early] Anyway, this place is meant for the younger generation.
-
Shukichi Hirayama: [Looking at sunrise the morning after Tomi died] It was such a beautiful dawn.
-
Shige Kaneko: Mama, you've grown taller.
Tomi Hirayama: Don't be silly. How could I have grown?
Shige Kaneko: But you have, and you're even fatter.
[turns to Noriko]
Shige Kaneko: She was so big when I was little that I used to feel ashamed in front of my friends. Once in school, a chair broke under her.
Tomi Hirayama: Oh, that chair was already broken.
Shige Kaneko: She still thinks that.
-
Tomi Hirayama: [speaking to her little grandson Isamu] - What are you going to be when you grow up? A doctor like your father?
[Isamu doesn't answer and continues to pick grass]
Tomi Hirayama: By the time you become a doctor, I wonder if I'll still be here.
-
Kurazo Kaneko: [returning from shopping] I brought some cakes for them.
[to Shige]
Kurazo Kaneko: Have one. They're good.
Shige Kaneko: [taking a cake] They don't need such expensive cakes.
Kurazo Kaneko: [eating a cake] Good, eh?
Shige Kaneko: [eating a cake] Good, but too expensive. Crackers would have been good enough for them.
Kurazo Kaneko: But they had crackers yesterday.
-
Shige Kaneko: [Tomi and Shukichi enter the hair salon] Why, you're back so soon. You should have stayed longer!
Tomi Hirayama: [as she passes Shige teasing a customer's hair] We're home.
Biyouin no kyaku: Who are they?
Shige Kaneko: Oh, just friends from the country.
[looks after Tomi and Shukichi with disdain]
-
Shukichi Hirayama: Oh, the fool I've always made of myself by drinking.
Osamu Hattori: Oh no, sake is good for the health.
-
Sanpei Numata: I often wish at least one of my sons were alive.
Osamu Hattori: Must have been hard to lose both of them.
[to Shukichi]
Osamu Hattori: Didn't you lose one?
Shukichi Hirayama: Yes, my second son.
Osamu Hattori: I've had enough of war.
Shukichi Hirayama: Yes, indeed. To lose your children is hard, but living with them isn't always easy either. A real dilemma.
-
Sanpei Numata: I'm afraid we expect too much of our children. They lack spirit. They lack ambition. I've told that to my son. He said that there are too many people in Tokyo. That it's hard to get ahead. What do you think? Young people today have no backbone. Where is there spirit? That's not how I raised him!
-
Tomi Hirayama: You may be happy while you're still young. But as you become older, you'll find it lonely.
Noriko: I won't get that old, so don't worry.
-
Tomi Hirayama: [saying good-bye at the train station] You were so nice to us, children. Now that we've seen you all, you need not come down, even if anything should happen to either one of us.
Shige Kaneko: Don't talk like that. This isn't a farewell.
Tomi Hirayama: I mean it. We live too far away.
-
Tetsudou-shokuin: How old is she?
Keizo Hirayama: Let me see. She's way over 60. Sixty-seven or 68, maybe.
Tetsudou-shokuin: Very old. Take good care of her. "Be a good son while your parents are alive."
Keizo Hirayama: That's right. "None can serve his parents beyond the grave."
-
Shukichi Hirayama: I'm surprised how children change. Shige used to be much nicer before. A married daughter is like a stranger.
Tomi Hirayama: Koichi has changed too. He used to be such a nice boy.
Shukichi Hirayama: Children don't live up to their parents' expectations. Let's just be happy that they're better than most.
Tomi Hirayama: They're certainly better than average. We're fortunate.
Shukichi Hirayama: I think so. We should consider ourselves lucky.
Tomi Hirayama: Yes, we are very lucky.
-
Shige Kaneko: [at dinner table following Tomi's funeral] Kyoko, did mother still have her summer sash? I'd like it for a keepsake. Is that alright with you? And that linen kimono she used to wear in summer? I want that too. You know where it is? Can you get it out?
-
Shukichi Hirayama: But if I had known things would come to this, I'd have been kinder to her while she was alive.
-
Kurazo Kaneko: We can't leave them there all night.
Shige Kaneko: It can't be helped, can it?
Kurazo Kaneko: Let's have Kiyo come down and we'll put them upstairs.
Shige Kaneko: They're too drunk to make it.
Kurazo Kaneko: What will we do, then?
[Shige scoffs]
Shige Kaneko: What a mess.
[She gets to her feet]
Shige Kaneko: You sleep upstairs. I'll put them here.
[She starts laying out bedrolls]
Shige Kaneko: What a bother. Why didn't he tell me he was coming back? So late and so drunk! I hate drunkards. With a stranger, too. Oh, this is disturbing.
-
Tomi Hirayama: What a treat to sleep in my dead son's bed.
-
Osamu Hattori: Remember the governor's visit to Onomichi?
Sanpei Numata: At Takemuraya?
Osamu Hattori: You got drunk. That young geisha who served...
Sanpei Numata: Umeko?
Osamu Hattori: You liked her, didn't you?
Sanpei Numata: And the governor happened to like her too, remember?
-
Sanpei Numata: Look, Hirayama. She resembles someone, doesn't she?
Oden-ya no onna: There he goes again.
Sanpei Numata: Don't you think so?
Shukichi Hirayama: Well, who?
Osamu Hattori: Yes, she does. That young geisha.
Sanpei Numata: Oh, no! She was fatter. This one resembles my wife.
Shukichi Hirayama: Yes, you're right.
Sanpei Numata: See, especially here.
Oden-ya no onna: Why don't you leave? You've had enough.
Sanpei Numata: And both are bad-tempered.
Oden-ya no onna: You're a real nuisance.
Sanpei Numata: My wife says so too.
-
Shukichi Hirayama: Until I came up to Tokyo, I was under the impression that my son was doing better. But I've found that he is only a small neighborhood doctor. I know how you feel. I'm as dissatisfied as you are. But we can't expect too much from our children. Times have changed. We have to face it. That's what I think.
-
Shukichi Hirayama: You'll get well. You'll get well. I'm sure you will.
-
Noriko: I'm not the nice woman she thought I was. If you see me like that, it embarrasses me.
Shukichi Hirayama: No, it shouldn't.
Noriko: Really, I'm quite selfish.
-
Noriko: I'm not always thinking of your son, though you think I am.
Shukichi Hirayama: I'll be happy if you forget him.
-
Noriko: Sometimes I feel I can't go on like this forever. Often I wonder, when I can't sleep, what will become of me if I stay this way. Day passes and night comes, yet nothing happens, and I feel a kind of loneliness. My heart seems to be waiting for something.
Tokyo Story Quotes
Extended Reading
