Snow Falling on Cedars

by

David Guterson

Ishmael Chambers is the owner and sole reporter of San Piedro’s only newspaper, the San Piedro Review. Ishmael’s father, Arthur Chambers, founded the newspaper, and Ishmael often compares himself to his late father, feeling disappointed and resentful for not actively living up to his father’s “moral meticulousness” as a reporter. As a young person, Ishmael Chambers had argued with his father over the difference between “truth” and “facts”: his father had argued for a looser version of truth, picking and choosing facts to spin into a larger narrative “truth,” while the young Ishmael had naively believed that “facts are facts” and that it was wrong to be selective about which ones to report. Today, Ishmael’s cynicism prevents from looking thoughtfully at the world, and he writes only banal and insignificant pieces for the paper. Ishmael was drafted and fought in World War II, during which a bullet cost him his arm. He harbors feelings of bitterness towards his injury and overall involvement in the war. Compounded with the injury is his perpetual lovesickness for Hatsue Miyamoto, with whom he had a passionate romance in adolescence. Society’s disapproval of interracial relationships and the heightened racism inflicted towards people of Japanese descent during WWII forced the couple to meet in secret, often in the safety of a hollow cedar tree. Hatsue couldn’t bear to lie to her parents, and also never felt that things were “right” when she was with Ishmael, so she broke off the relationship abruptly. Over 10 years after their break-up, during the novel’s present day, Ishmael still harbors pain and resentment over the breakup, and this causes him to almost hold back information that would exonerate Hatsue’s husband, Kabuo Miyamoto, who is wrongly accused of murdering Carl Heine, a local fisherman. Ishmael ultimately comes to terms with his heartbreak and learns that he must and strive to live as morally, truthfully, and happily as he can.

Ishmael Chambers Quotes in Snow Falling on Cedars

The Snow Falling on Cedars quotes below are all either spoken by Ishmael Chambers or refer to Ishmael Chambers. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Racism and Prejudice Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

An unflagging loyalty to his profession and its principles had made Arthur, over the years, increasingly deliberate in his speech and actions, and increasingly exacting regarding the truth in even his most casual reportage. He was, his son remembered, morally meticulous, and though Ishmael might strive to emulate this, there was nevertheless the matter of the war—this matter of the arm he’d lost—that made such scrupulosity difficult.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers, Arthur Chambers
Page Number: 34-35
Explanation and Analysis:

His cynicism—a veteran’s cynicism—was a thing that disturbed him all the time. It seemed to him after the war that the world was thoroughly altered. […] People appeared enormously foolish to him. He understood that they were only animated cavities full of jelly and strings and liquids.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

The inside of the tree felt private. He felt they would never be discovered here. […] The rain afforded an even greater privacy; no one in the world would come this way and find them inside this tree.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers, Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada)
Related Symbols: The Cedar Tree
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

“Not every fact is just a fact,” he added. “It’s all a kind of…balancing act. A juggling of pins, all kinds of pins, that’s what journalism is about.”

“That isn’t journalism,” Ishmael answered. “Journalism is just the facts.”

[…]

“But which facts?” Arthur asked him. “Which facts do we print, Ishmael?”

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers (speaker), Arthur Chambers (speaker)
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

“That is the fundamental difference, Hatsue. We bend our heads, we bow and are silent, because we understand that by ourselves, alone, we are nothing at all, dust in a strong wind, while the hakujin believes his aloneness is everything, his separateness is the foundation of his existence. He seeks and grasps, seeks and grasps for the separateness, while we seek union with the Greater Life—you must see that these are distinct paths we are traveling, Hatsue, the hakujin and we Japanese.”

Related Characters: Fujiko Imada (speaker), Ishmael Chambers, Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada)
Page Number: 201
Explanation and Analysis:

She was of this place and she was not of this place, and though she might desire to be an American it was clear, as her mother said, that she had the face of America’s enemy and would always have such a face.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers, Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada), Fujiko Imada, Hisao Imada
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:

“None of those other things makes a difference. Love is the strongest thing in the world, you know. Nothing can touch it. Nothing comes close. If we love each other we’re safe from it all. Love is the biggest thing there is.”

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers (speaker), Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada)
Related Symbols: The Cedar Tree
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

“I’m not talking about the whole universe,” cut in Hatsue. “I’m talking about people—the sheriff, that prosecutor, the judge, you. People who can do things because they run newspapers or arrest people or convict them or decide about their lives. People don’t have to be unfair, do they? That isn’t just part of things, when people are unfair to somebody.”

Related Characters: Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada) (speaker), Ishmael Chambers, Kabuo Miyamoto, Hisao Imada
Related Symbols: Snow
Page Number: 326
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“You’ll think this is crazy,” Ishmael said. “But all I want is to hold you. All I want is just to hold you once and smell your hair, Hatsue. I think after that I’ll be better.”

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers (speaker), Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada)
Page Number: 334
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

“The defense hasn’t made its case yet, but you’re all ready to convict. You’ve got the prosecutor’s set of facts, but that might not be the whole story—it never is, Ishmael. And besides, really, facts are so cold, so horribly cold—can we defend on facts by themselves?”

“What else do we have?” replied Ishmael. “Everything else is ambiguous. Everything else is emotions and hunches. At least the facts you can cling to; the emotions just float away.”

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers (speaker), Helen Chambers (speaker), Kabuo Miyamoto
Page Number: 345
Explanation and Analysis:

“I can’t tell you what to do, Ishmael. I’ve tried to understand what it’s been like for you—having gone to war, having lost your arm, not having married or had children. I’ve tried to make sense of it all, believe me, I have—how it must feel to be you. But I must confess that, no matter how I try, I can’t really understand you. There are other boys, after all, who went to war and came back home and pushed on with their lives […]. But you—you went numb, Ishmael. And you’ve stayed numb all these years.”

Related Characters: Helen Chambers (speaker), Ishmael Chambers
Page Number: 347
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

But the war, his arm, the course of things—it had all made his heart much smaller. He had not moved on at all. […] So perhaps that was what her eyes meant now on those rare occasions when she looked at him—he’d shrunk so thoroughly in her estimation, not lived up to who he was. He read her letter another time and understood that she had once admired him, there was something in him she was grateful for even if she could not love him. That was a part of himself he’d lost over the years, that was the part that was gone.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers, Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada)
Page Number: 442
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

Ishmael gave himself to the writing of it, and as he did so he understood this, too; that accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers
Page Number: 460
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Snow Falling on Cedars LitChart as a printable PDF.
Snow Falling on Cedars PDF

Ishmael Chambers Quotes in Snow Falling on Cedars

The Snow Falling on Cedars quotes below are all either spoken by Ishmael Chambers or refer to Ishmael Chambers. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Racism and Prejudice Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

An unflagging loyalty to his profession and its principles had made Arthur, over the years, increasingly deliberate in his speech and actions, and increasingly exacting regarding the truth in even his most casual reportage. He was, his son remembered, morally meticulous, and though Ishmael might strive to emulate this, there was nevertheless the matter of the war—this matter of the arm he’d lost—that made such scrupulosity difficult.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers, Arthur Chambers
Page Number: 34-35
Explanation and Analysis:

His cynicism—a veteran’s cynicism—was a thing that disturbed him all the time. It seemed to him after the war that the world was thoroughly altered. […] People appeared enormously foolish to him. He understood that they were only animated cavities full of jelly and strings and liquids.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

The inside of the tree felt private. He felt they would never be discovered here. […] The rain afforded an even greater privacy; no one in the world would come this way and find them inside this tree.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers, Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada)
Related Symbols: The Cedar Tree
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

“Not every fact is just a fact,” he added. “It’s all a kind of…balancing act. A juggling of pins, all kinds of pins, that’s what journalism is about.”

“That isn’t journalism,” Ishmael answered. “Journalism is just the facts.”

[…]

“But which facts?” Arthur asked him. “Which facts do we print, Ishmael?”

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers (speaker), Arthur Chambers (speaker)
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

“That is the fundamental difference, Hatsue. We bend our heads, we bow and are silent, because we understand that by ourselves, alone, we are nothing at all, dust in a strong wind, while the hakujin believes his aloneness is everything, his separateness is the foundation of his existence. He seeks and grasps, seeks and grasps for the separateness, while we seek union with the Greater Life—you must see that these are distinct paths we are traveling, Hatsue, the hakujin and we Japanese.”

Related Characters: Fujiko Imada (speaker), Ishmael Chambers, Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada)
Page Number: 201
Explanation and Analysis:

She was of this place and she was not of this place, and though she might desire to be an American it was clear, as her mother said, that she had the face of America’s enemy and would always have such a face.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers, Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada), Fujiko Imada, Hisao Imada
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:

“None of those other things makes a difference. Love is the strongest thing in the world, you know. Nothing can touch it. Nothing comes close. If we love each other we’re safe from it all. Love is the biggest thing there is.”

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers (speaker), Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada)
Related Symbols: The Cedar Tree
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

“I’m not talking about the whole universe,” cut in Hatsue. “I’m talking about people—the sheriff, that prosecutor, the judge, you. People who can do things because they run newspapers or arrest people or convict them or decide about their lives. People don’t have to be unfair, do they? That isn’t just part of things, when people are unfair to somebody.”

Related Characters: Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada) (speaker), Ishmael Chambers, Kabuo Miyamoto, Hisao Imada
Related Symbols: Snow
Page Number: 326
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“You’ll think this is crazy,” Ishmael said. “But all I want is to hold you. All I want is just to hold you once and smell your hair, Hatsue. I think after that I’ll be better.”

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers (speaker), Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada)
Page Number: 334
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

“The defense hasn’t made its case yet, but you’re all ready to convict. You’ve got the prosecutor’s set of facts, but that might not be the whole story—it never is, Ishmael. And besides, really, facts are so cold, so horribly cold—can we defend on facts by themselves?”

“What else do we have?” replied Ishmael. “Everything else is ambiguous. Everything else is emotions and hunches. At least the facts you can cling to; the emotions just float away.”

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers (speaker), Helen Chambers (speaker), Kabuo Miyamoto
Page Number: 345
Explanation and Analysis:

“I can’t tell you what to do, Ishmael. I’ve tried to understand what it’s been like for you—having gone to war, having lost your arm, not having married or had children. I’ve tried to make sense of it all, believe me, I have—how it must feel to be you. But I must confess that, no matter how I try, I can’t really understand you. There are other boys, after all, who went to war and came back home and pushed on with their lives […]. But you—you went numb, Ishmael. And you’ve stayed numb all these years.”

Related Characters: Helen Chambers (speaker), Ishmael Chambers
Page Number: 347
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

But the war, his arm, the course of things—it had all made his heart much smaller. He had not moved on at all. […] So perhaps that was what her eyes meant now on those rare occasions when she looked at him—he’d shrunk so thoroughly in her estimation, not lived up to who he was. He read her letter another time and understood that she had once admired him, there was something in him she was grateful for even if she could not love him. That was a part of himself he’d lost over the years, that was the part that was gone.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers, Hatsue Miyamoto (Hatsue Imada)
Page Number: 442
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

Ishmael gave himself to the writing of it, and as he did so he understood this, too; that accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart.

Related Characters: Ishmael Chambers
Page Number: 460
Explanation and Analysis: