People From Kanagi

"The only reason you helped me out was because I’m a tortoise and my tormentors were children. To intervene between a tortoise and children isn’t likely to bring about much in the way of repercussions. What did you give them—five coppers? That’s big money to a child, but it’s not much skin off your back, is it? I thought you’d put up a bit more than that. Miserly isn’t the word. How do you think it makes me feel? Five coppers for my life. For you it was just a whim of the moment. ‘A few coppers to rescue a tortoise—oh, hell, why not?’ But suppose it wasn’t children teasing a tortoise but, say, a group of rowdy fishermen tormenting some sickly beggar. Would you have offered so much as a single copper? Hardly. You would have scowled and hurried past, not wanting to get involved."

"The only thing people like you can see is other people’s faults, and you’re oblivious to the horror in your own hearts. You people terrify me."

"'Most of our children’s stories end with the perpetrators of evil deeds getting what’s coming to them, but this old gentleman did nothing wrong. He tried to perform a dance that, owing to a case of nerves, turned out rather disturbingly weird, but that’s the extent of his crime. Nor was anyone in his family particularly evil. And the same can be said for the sake-loving Ojii-san and his family, and for the Oni of Mount Tsurugi as well. None of them did anything wrong. And yet, although not a single instance of wrongdoing occurs in the story, people end up unhappy. It’s difficult, therefore, to extract from this tale of the stolen wen a moral lesson for daily life. But were an indignant reader to demand to know why, in that case, I even bothered to write the damn thing, I would have no choice but to reply as follows: It’s a tragicomedy of character. At issue here is an undercurrent that winds through the very heart of human existence."

"Is this what all you refined gentlemen are like—wishing and pining and never acting?"

"Is it painful to be the person who waits? Or is it more painful to be the person who makes others wait? Either way, there's no need to wait anymore. That's what is most painful."

"Fuji goes well with the evening primrose. (Alternate translation: Evening primroses really look very well in the landscape of Mt. Fuji.)"

"Real thought takes courage more than intelligence."

"Are "people in the world", I wonder, creatures that spend their whole lives greeting each other in stiff, formal patterns, being cautious about each other, then growing tired of each other? I hate meeting people."

"“Every family,” he jested, “has a fool—just to keep it in touch with reality.”"

"Nevertheless, I still wait for someone. Who on earth am I waiting for, sitting here everyday? For what sort of person? Maybe what I'm waiting for isn't even a human. I dislike humans. No, I fear them. When I meet someone and indifferently exchange such greetings as 'How are you?' or 'It's become cold', greetings I don't want to make, I somehow get the unpleasant feeling that there is no such horrible liar in the whole world as I, and I wish I were dead."

"Masks in one layer after another—as many as ten or twenty—had fastened themselves upon me, and I could no longer tell how sad any one of them really was."

"I was a petal quivering in the slightest breeze, about to fall any moment. Even the slightest insult made me think of dying."

"Just to see all the books lining the shelves would lighten my mood as if by magic. Of course, I didn’t go to bookstores just to read articles on anatomy. I went because any book gave me comfort and solace at the time."

"The true substance of love lies in the act of howling words of love with a desperation of a man jumping into the high seas."

"The roar of laughter at civilization’s end."

"If all you've got is just enough talent to get along, sooner or later you'll betray yourself."

"You takes things too seriously. It seems you’re not satisfied unless you always make yourself the protagonist in some tragedy."

"People do not necessarily think and consider in a prescribed way before choosing the path they'll walk. For the most part they simply wander, at some point, into a different meadow."

"The year before last I was expelled from my family and, reduced to poverty overnight, was left to wander the streets, begging help for various quarters, barely managing to stay alive from one day to the next, and just when I'd begun to think I might be able to support myself with my writing, I came down with a serious illness. Thanks to the compassion of others, I was able to rent a small house in Funabashi, Chiba, next to the muddy sea, and spent the summer there alone, convalescing. Though battling an illness that each and every night left my robe literally drenched with sweat, I had no choice but to press ahead with my work. The cold half pint of milk I drank each morning was the only thing that gave me a certain peculiar sense of the joy in life; my mental anguish and exhaustion were such that the oleanders blooming in one corner of the garden appeared to me merely flicking tongues of flame..."

"The disgust in which I hold Dazai's literature is in some way ferocious. First, I dislike his face. Second, I dislike his rustic preference for urban sophistication. Third, I dislike the fact that he played roles that were not appropriate for him."