If you are looking for quotes about Tokyo, the incredible capital city of Japan, you are in the right place. I love collecting quotes, whether it is about solo travel or Instagram smile quotes or amazing quotes about beautiful waterfalls. And now, I want to share the best Tokyo quotes that will inspire to plan a trip to Tokyo, whether you have just 2 days to spend or a week!
Japan made me fall in love with it, and I couldn’t get enough of this beautiful country as 3 weeks in Japan went in a breeze.
I loved the charm of Tokyo, and after visiting the city, I understood why Tokyo is one of the cities that we hear over and over again with the likes of London, Paris, Rome or New York. But it is unlike these metropolitan cities which have something in common.
Tokyo is one of the legend cities that’s hard to describe in words. Tokyo is a feeling, Tokyo is more than a city with stunning skyscrapers and neon lights, it is the heart of Japan and not just a capital city.
In this post, you will find renowned authors, writers and other celebrities sharing their most beautiful quotes about Tokyo. These people have tried to beautifully capture the essence of this gem of Japan in their words.
You will find everything about’s the city’s soul out in the words here -From Beautiful Tokyo quotes, inspirational Tokyo quotes, quotes about Shibuya crossing, short quotes about Tokyo and Tokyo travel quotes that will make you want to plan a Japan trip.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES ABOUT TOKYO
CONTENTS
‘Living right in the heart of Tokyo itself is quite like living in the mountains – in the midst of so many people, one hardly sees anyone.’ ― YÅ«ko Tsushima
Tokyo is unlike any other city when it comes to feeling crowded or noticed, as you can see people going about their business with total silence, no interference, chaos on the streets or loud noise.
Tokyo might be among the most populated cities in the world, but you will hardly see that as a problem. This is one of the quotes about Tokyo that explains this best, coming from the heart of a Tokyo-born author.
‘Tokyo was a place you could quite happily exist alone and be self-contained. It seemed to promise that it was better to be by yourself.’ ― Olivia Sudjic
‘It’s been a year and nine-month since we broke up. It’s almost the second spring since then. When I turn 20 in March, I’m going to buy myself a much-deserved present. A one-way ticket to Tokyo. As for luggage, all I need is my guitar and my smokes.’ ― Ai Yazawa
Tokyo is one of the places to escape from life, run away to find solace amidst the neon lights, sakura, delicious food and warm people. The above Tokyo quote perfectly illustrates this feeling.
‘From New Year’s Eve through the third of January, the streets of Tokyo grew quiet, as if all the people had disappeared.’ ― Shogo Oketani
‘The overriding sense of Tokyo is that it is a city devoted to the new, sped up in a subtle but profound way: a postmodern science-fiction story set ten minutes in the future.’ ― David Rakoff
Above is one of the Tokyo quotes that describes perfectly how modern the city is, and how the thought that as if you are in the future comes to your mind.
‘The familiar sound of the kitchen knife, and the stove’s smell, mom’s back. It feels like my life in Tokyo was just a dream.’ ― Mika Yamamori.
This is one of the beautiful quotes about Tokyo that brings up nostalgic feelings of those who grew up in this city.
‘I wanted to meet the people, to get involved in the city, to make Tokyo mine.’ -Jacob Aue Sobol
A day or two in Tokyo, and you will feel like leaving a piece of your heart behind, or even better make it yours. The above is one of the moving quotes about Tokyo that describes falling in love with this beautiful city.
‘Japan, not only a mega-busy city that thrives on electronics and efficiency, actually has an almost sacred appreciation of nature. One must travel outside of Tokyo to truly experience the ‘old Japan’ and more importantly feel these aspects of Japanese culture.’ – Apolo Ohno
This is one of the beautiful quotes about Japan that states that there is so much more in the country beyond Tokyo. Tokyo might be one of the classic cities in the world, but you can learn all about Japan’s food, people and culture as you venture further into the country.
‘If Japan is enigmatic, then Tokyo is the heart of that riddle, its rhythm and essence so utterly alluring that it demands to be explored. It has a depth that keeps travellers in a constant state of rapture and delight. Whatever your vice, Tokyo has you covered.’ – Michael Ryan
‘If you go to Tokyo, I think it becomes very obvious that there’s this almost seamless mixture of popular culture and Japanese traditional culture.’ – Kazuo Ishiguro
‘Tokyo is like the New York of Asia. Although the people there are all basically from Japan, they celebrate what they like about various cultures.’ – Pharrell Williams
Another of the quotes about Tokyo that tells us about how flexible the Japanese people are.
‘I tell you, Heaven is a real, literal, physical place, a city as material, as physical, as literal as Chicago or London or New York or Tokyo.’ – John R. Rice
‘If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it you would be amazed at the animals that fall out: badgers, wolves, boa constrictors, crocodiles, ostriches, baboons, capybaras, wild boars, leopards, manatees, ruminants, in untold numbers. There is no doubt in my mind that that feral giraffes and feral hippos have been living in Tokyo for generations without seeing a soul.’ – Yann Martel
‘Here in this ocean, in the midst of all this water, with the red flags on those distant buoys flapping in the sea breeze, I find myself unable to treat our house in Tokyo as anything but a dream.’ – Banana Yoshimoto
‘When I think of Tokyo Story, yeah, it is like a novella. That doesn’t mean it’s not great. Some of my favorite Tolstoy works are his novellas.’ – Paul Auster
FUNNY TOKYO CAPTIONS
These are some of the best funny quotes about Tokyo that showcases what living in this city is like, and the culture that is hard to relate to elsewhere in the world.
‘Tokyo cab drivers are all ex-kamikaze pilots.’ – Bob Hope
‘The Japanese tend to be far more co-operative and docile and group-oriented. It would be easier to get the entire population of Tokyo to wear matching outfits than to get any two randomly selected Americans to agree on pizza toppings.’ – Dave Barry
‘Tokyo is huge. Something like 15 million people live there, and my estimate is that at any given moment, 14.7 million of them are lost.’ – Dave Barry
This is one of the hilarious quotes about Tokyo that reminds us how big the city is.
And the below Tokyo caption is about dealing with the timezones across the world.
‘I always used to reach for the cigarette when the phone rang, and I figured nobody would ever call me in Tokyo. The time difference is so profound it’s, like, already September in Tokyo, and I figured nobody would be able to work it out.’ – David Sedaris
‘My brother then opened a tall man’s shop in Tokyo.’ – Henny Youngman
‘I did a lot of shopping for her in Tokyo because the colours here are very conservative. A shopaholic would have a coat in every colour or and lots of accessories.’ – Sophie Kinsella
BEAUTIFUL QUOTES ABOUT TOKYO ART & CULTURE
There is so much more to this stunning capital city. Tokyo has been the centre stage of the movie world, musicians, artists and other creative souls. Below quotes about Tokyo reminds us of these elements.
‘No other capital has been devastated so often and so spectacularly in any national cinema as Tokyo, from the gleeful abandon wrought by Godzilla to the post-apocalyptic nightmares of Otomo Katsuhiro’s animated epic, Akira.’ – Ian Luna
‘I always had a sense that I would fall in love with Tokyo. In retrospect, I guess it’s not that surprising. I was of the generation that had grown up in the ’80s when Japan was ascendant (born aloft by a bubble whose burst crippled its economy for decades), and I’d fed on a steady diet of anime and samurai films.’ – Junot Diaz
‘More than any other city, Tokyo demonstrates that ‘city’ is a verb and not a noun.’ – Toshiko Mori
‘I’ve been in situations like in Tokyo where people sang my song word for word and then when the music stopped, they couldn’t speak to me. I’ve seen the music break the language barrier.’ – Curtis Jackson
‘A Rockefeller Center manque clad in a humourless variant of American corporate modernism.’ – Ian Luna
‘Like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo looking for spare parts on the planet Xenon.’ – Peter Carey
This quote about Tokyo describes the fascinating streets of Akihabara, the Mecca of electronic goods and gadgets.
Another quote about Akihabara is below for you.
‘It’s akin to the maddest Asian market you’ve ever been in, but instead of selling mangos, the teens are hawking manga and motherboards- and the sellers are not only pushy, but they’re also pre-recorded.’ – Denik Town
‘The best city for fashion is Tokyo. You see styles there you won’t see in London, Paris, Milan or New York. I also like the fashion scene in Los Angeles – it has a unique look.’ – Tommy Hilfiger
QUOTES ABOUT TOKYO FOOD
Japanese food is treasured all around the world, and it is no surprise the culinary delight is one of the top reasons for many to travel to Japan. Although Osaka bags the title ‘the kitchen of Japan,’ Tokyo is no less, with tons of restaurants, eateries, bars and cafes serving the
‘I love Tokyo. If I had to eat only in one city for the rest of my life, Tokyo would be it. Most chefs I know would agree with me.’ – Anthony Bourdain
‘For those with restless, curious minds, fascinated by layer upon layer of things, flavours, tastes and customs, which we will never fully be able to understand, Tokyo is deliciously unknowable. I’m sure I could spend the rest of my life there, learn the language, and still die happily ignorant.’ – Anthony Bourdain
‘It is useless to even try to answer the question I’ve been asked at least once a week over the past three years: ‘Okay, which are, hands down, the three best restaurants in Tokyo?’ Asking this question about Tokyo is like asking which three websites are the best on the internet.’ – Cambay
‘In Tokyo, we have more three-star Michelin restaurants than in Paris.’ – Nobu Matsuhisa
‘One of my favourite cities is Tokyo because of sushi, and Asian food in general, but then also the way Tokyo operates, because it’s so clean, and there’s space for a lot of variety of stores.’ – Lauv
QUOTES ABOUT TOKYO LIVING
Below are the excerpts from the various books by the historian and author Donald Richie, an American who extensively wrote about Japanese culture, the cinema and the Japanese people.
These beautiful quotes about Tokyo coming from someone that spent many years as a foreigner offer glimpses of the city from the perspective of an outsider.
Some of them are straight from the book Tokyo – a perfect book to get that the best Tokyo captions and quotes.
‘In Tokyo, one feels- as Henry James felt in London- that the city has no single style, only innumerable attempts at style.’ – Donald Richie
‘I sometimes wonder why the Japanese went to all the trouble of franchising a Disneyland in the suburbs when the capital itself is in many ways so superior a version.’ – Donald Richie
‘For the pedestrian foreigner, much of Tokyo’s frenetic carnival flavour is due to familiar things being used in unfamiliar ways. There is a kind of freedom in finding that Doric columns don’t mean banks, nor red roof tiles of Spain. The feeling of being at liberty in Tokyo is occasioned by this ‘illiteracy’. There is no telling what anything means.’ Donald Ritchie
‘Wandering in a smart Tokyo neighbourhood is like wandering in a box of Quality Street: everything is different, everything tastes the same.’ – Donald Richie
‘Londoners actually want to live in the suburbs where they have a bit of space, a spot of green. Tokyoites, however, want to live in Tokyo, always have, always will. For them, the suburbs and the long commute exist only because they cannot afford to live in crowded, expensive Tokyo.’ – Donald Richie
‘If the European street can be seen as something like a stage, the Japanese street is like a market. This is very Asian of it.’ – Donald Richie
‘The Japanese, like the English, prefer the cosy, and consequently, the streets of new Tokyo are as crooked and twisting as those of old London.’ – Donald Ritchie
‘Each complex is a small town, and their numbers make up this enormous capital. Like cells in a body, each contains identical elements, and the resulting pattern is an organic one.’ Donald Richie
‘Tokyo is also a city where the sheer number of people to stare at can be exhilarating. As Constantin Guys said, -Anyone who is capable of being bored in a crowd is a blockhead’.’ – Donald Richie
‘Tokyo is much like Calcutta with all the amenities, or Singapore before city planners wreaked it.’ – Donald Richie
‘Though Japanese municipalities, particularly Tokyo, may appear to be reassuringly, or distressingly, Western, even a short acquaintance with these modern-seeming cities indicates that they are not Western nor, indeed, in any Western sense modern.’ – Donald Richie
‘Equally important to Tokyo ’style’ is the lack of zoning- no slums and ghettos, the no good and bad side of the tracks, no strictly industrial areas, no rigorously residential districts.’ – Donald Richie
‘Tokyo seems the least designed of capitals, not so much contrived as naturally grown.’ – Donald Richie
Below are more beautiful quotes about Tokyo by people that have lived there, experienced the depth of this mystic city.
Before I became a writer, I was running a jazz bar in the centre of Tokyo, which means that I worked in filthy air all the time late into the night. I was very excited when I started making a living out of my writing, and I decided, ‘I will live in nothing but an absolutely healthy way.’ – Haruki Murakami
‘I love Japan, and Tokyo is my favourite city.’ – Barry Eisler
‘What they have done in Japan, which I find so inspirational, is they’ve brought the toilet out from behind the locked door. They’ve made it conversational.’ – Rose George
‘There are so many more people in Tokyo than in New York, but it’s pristine. It’s so organized, and yet the address system is in complete chaos.’ – Nick Wooster
‘Tokyo was an origami city folded over and over until something was made of virtually nothing.’ – Christopher Barzak
‘Tokyo – still – offers the most tightly integrated infrastructure, where smooth, technology-driven experiences take place when engaging in everyday actions, such as verifying personal identity, paying for goods, and buying tickets.’ – Unknown
‘Tokyo is too close up to see, sometimes. There are no distances and everything is above your head – dentists, kindergartens, dance studios. Even the roads and walkways are up on murky stilts. An evil-twin Venice with all the water drained away.’ – David Mitchell
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‘Here in Tokyo, they’re not just hard-working but almost violently cheerful. Down at the Peacock, the change flows like tap water. The women behind the registers bow to you, and I don’t mean that they lower their heads a little, the way you might if passing someone on the street. These cashiers press their hands together and bend from the waist. Then they say what sounds to me like “We, the people of this store, worship you as we might a god.’ – David Sedaris
‘Japan and Tokyo, in particular, has been my muse for decades. Every trip brings a little more depth to my understanding of this complex, multi-layered city. But it is enormous, and spatially in can be confusing, particularly when you travel mostly underground. A more manageable way of comprehending Tokyo is to think of it as a number of smaller cities merged into one – Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Ginza. Each one has its own feel, its own personality.’ – Michael Ryan
‘I feel tranquillity in Tokyo, even though it is the largest populated metropolitan area in the world. The feeling seems counterintuitive, yet Tokyo begs you to relax and enjoy each layer, facet or slice of whatever you may have stumbled upon or booked months in advance – always in the knowledge that you’re without hope of ticking all boxes, even in a lifetime of tours.’ – Michael Ryan
I see the whole world in a different way. I often compare the experience of going to Japan for the first time, going to Tokyo for the first time, to what Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend—the reigning guitar gods of England—must have gone through the week that Jimi Hendrix came to town.’ – Anthony Bourdain
‘Visiting Tokyo for the first time will change your life. It’s mesmerising, exciting and resolutely individual, an unrivalled parade of fashion, design, architecture and the best of both high culture and pop culture.
It’s a city of contrasts; whether you’re standing in the middle of the Shibuya scramble, a blur of pedestrians rushing past you while you try to snap that perfect crowd shot, or standing before a small shrine, quiet and contemplative, you will feel the intensity and multi-layered nature of this very special place.’ – Michelle Mackintosh
‘Working in Tokyo has convinced me that, contrary to what people think, it is actually one of the world’s most beautiful cities.’ – Tadao Ando
‘Tokyo is cities within cities, towns within towns; it is made of ecosystems that grow in a very organic and intimate way, like flowers pushing through the cracks and fissures of urbanisation. It’s the illusion of utter chaos – mad crowds of people rushing about their daily lives – layered over an extraordinarily ordered cluster of urban hubs.’ – Michelle Mackintosh
INSPIRATIONAL TOKYO CAPTIONS FOR INSTAGRAM
Tokyo is one of the best cities to travel alone, safe, amazing public transport, and everything that will enable you to enjoy the city alone. It is one of my favourite cities for travelling solo.
One of the best quotes about Tokyo below elicits these thoughts well.
‘Tokyo is a very safe city. At night it becomes quiet the way New York never does.’ – Rick Kennedy
Shibuya crossing is the busiest pedestrian walking street in the world. The main junction that lies at the intersection of Tokyo’s many streets, Shibuya is the heart of Tokyo, it is the icon of Japan’s ever-awake, round-the-clock active and thriving people.
I had fun crossing this junction, capturing the neon’s blitz and people watching at Shibuya, which is one of the best experiences to have on your Japan Bucket list.
Below quotes about Shibuya crossing perfectly describe what it looks like.
‘Shibuya is a great place to start your trip, as it offers you a taste of every stereotype you could hope to see in Tokyo.’ – Tokyo Underground
‘Shibuya is a trendy part of Tokyo where young people come to meet and have a good time.’ – Rebecca MacKinnon
‘Since seeking beauty in this city of Tokyo is useless, can it not be said that the most agreeable place to live is Asakusa, where ugliness bares its essential form?’ – Tanizaki
‘Tokyo seems the least designed of capitals, not so much contrived as naturally grown.’ – Unknown
‘Full of Western-style shops so expensive that they seem to stock only one cardigan each. displayed on plinths in the middle of acres of space.’ – Unknown
‘I’m not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do.’ – Anthony Bourdain
‘Look at London or Paris: they’re both filthy. You don’t get that in Tokyo. The proud residents look after their city.’ – Tadao Ando
‘Tokyo style is so specific. And I’m a very big fan of their history. It’s pretty simple. A lot of the time, people expect to see the wild style that comes out of Japan, but I think, traditionally, the style is very simple.’ – Unknown
‘There are so many more people in Tokyo than in New York, but it’s pristine. It’s so organized, and yet the address system is in complete chaos.’ – Nick Wooster
‘Japan is the only country I know where a flower can bring an entire nation to a state of near-sexual excitement.’ – Karin Muller
‘In Japanese culture, there is a belief that God is everywhere – in mountains, trees, rocks, even in our sympathy for robots or Hello Kitty toys.’ – Ryuichi Sakamoto
‘Japan is the most intoxicating place for me. The Japanese culture fascinates me: the food, the dress, the manners and the traditions. It’s the travel experience that has moved me the most.’ – Unknown
So that’s it about all the best quotes about Tokyo, its people, culture, traditions, skyline, food and more.
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