"Words are a medium that reduces reality to abstraction for transmission to our reason, and in their power to corrode reality inevitably lurks the danger that the words will be corroded too. It might be more appropriate, in fact, to liken their action to excessive stomach fluids that digest and gradually eat away the stomach itself. Many people will express disbelief that such a process could already be at work in a person's earliest years. But that, beyond doubt, is what happened to me personally, thereby laying the ground for two contradictory tendencies within myself. One was the determination to press ahead loyally with the corrosive function of words, and to make that my life's work. The other was the desire to encounter reality in some field where words should play no part at all."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Poets from JapanEssayists from JapanShort story writers from JapanPlaywrights from JapanActors from Japan
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 9.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima (January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970) was the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka, a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, film director, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai.
45 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Yukio Mishima →
Related Quotes
"He'd been mistaken in thinking that if he killed himself the sordid bourgeois world would perish with him."
"What transforms this world is — knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Kn…"
"There is something that even now strikes me as strange. Originally I was not possessed by gloomy thoughts. My concern…"
"We Japanese must reveal the true form of our imperial land, in which the sovereign and the people are gloriously unit…"
"‘The human body is the work of art. It doesn’t need artists.’ But the artist replies: ‘Okay, let’s say you’re right. …"
"I've never done much, but I've lived my whole life thinking of myself as the only real man. And if I'm right, then a …"
"According to Eshin's "Essentials of Salvation," the Ten Pleasures are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the jo…"
"By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an ent…"
"Just let matters slide. How much better to accept each sweet drop of the honey that was Time, than to stoop to the vu…"
"I want to make a poem of my life."