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Osamu Dazai

221 quotes

“Such it is for those in the grips of misfortune: declarations of support and sympathy, rather than providing comfort, may merely increase the victim's pain.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any connoisseur knows you've got to be drunk to really enjoy a good romance.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have suffered much at the hands of human society. Forgive me if I seem overly suspicious.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A life free of lies! Ah, but that, too, was, by definition, a lie. Surely a lie already dwelled in the heart of anyone who sought to make such distinctions and stand in judgment.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One lies to seek a bit of relief from a ponderous, suffocating reality, but the liar, like the drinker, gradually comes to need larger and larger doses. The lies become blacker and more complex, and they mesh and rub together until in the end they shine with the luster of truth.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Shame on me for making such a mockery of myself. Blame it on my wounded pride. The fact is that my fear of being ridiculed is so intense I'd rather beat my critics to the punch. That's the epitome of cowardice.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How cruel of you. What part of what you see here is carefree? If only you could understand the sadness of the ones who grow the delicate flowers of buffoonery, protecting them from but the slightest gust of wind and always on the verge of despair!”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But in my softness I find peace, however fleeting.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man crushed by reality puts on a show of endurance. If that's beyond your comprehension, dear reader, then you and I will never understand each other. Life's a farce, so we might as well make it a good one. But real life is a realm that I may never reach. The best that I can hope for is to loiter in the memory of these four days, so steeped with empathy. Four days that count more than five or ten years of my life. Four days that count more than a lifetime.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Young people never say anything straight. You can tell they're being honest if they hide behind a laugh.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even now, I barely have the strength to reread what I've written.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Welcome to Sadness. Population one.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was only natural for Yozo to vacillate when asked about the reason behind his suicide – it was everything to him.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beautiful feelings make bad literature. In which case, this precious state of prose is proof that I'm no devil after all. Ah, blessed be the man who coined this phrase! It is a treasure of the language. An author can get away with using it but once in his career. Sad to say. The first time, it's endearing. If you insist on using it a second or a third time, though, dear reader, hiding behind it like a shield, you can expect nothing but misery.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The next morning was peaceful and clear. The sea was calm. White smoke from the volcano on Oshima, just above the horizon, drifted up into the sky. Never mind. I hate describing scenery.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This novel was doomed from the start. All posture and no substance. Whether I write one page or a hundred, it amounts to the same thing. Though I knew this from the start.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Haven’t we known for a long time that it’s a mistake to attach meaning to each and every action of a person? Forced explanations often end in a distortion of lies.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have no choice. I am a person with no reason to live. I know my lot. Yes, it would be great to die one day sooner.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despair is impossible in humans. They often are deceived by hope, but are also deceived by the notion of despair.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By living this way, what will my fortune be? There is nothing. Am I simply a sickly man? What should I do? I had no direction, nothing. I thought that this reckless life of mine was only a nuisance to others and devoid of meaning. This was quite hard to bear.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each day I deceived myself, unlike you who could never deceive yourself. Anxiety was trapped in the depths of my heart, like a formation of black clouds I could not break free of.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The smile of one flower permeates those who live next to death more than the problem of life and death.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No thought in the world is worse than the realization that, “My life is a nuisance to others. I am useless.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course, I intended to die without telling a soul about my illness. Without anyone knowing, I would secretly deteriorate. Actually, I felt that there was nothing else I could do. I had no alternatives. Shouldn’t I be resolved to die as a peasant in my horribly confused final circumstance? I had no excuses. It was not because life suddenly became precious, but the forced pretense until yesterday had disappeared.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People depend on death to be complete. While alive, they are all incomplete.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Around that time, I lost interest in college. I could only see blackness before me, I didn’t know what to do. It was no easy matter to prevent my father from criticizing my loafing around the house and my mother from seeing me as unworthy.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human beings are like that, though. They’ll do the most unbelievably cruel things when you least expect it.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is this what all you refined gentlemen are like—wishing and pining and never acting?”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fuji goes well with the evening primrose. (Alternate translation: Evening primroses really look very well in the landscape of Mt. Fuji.)”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Real thought takes courage more than intelligence.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every family,” he jested, “has a fool—just to keep it in touch with reality.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was a petal quivering in the slightest breeze, about to fall any moment. Even the slightest insult made me think of dying.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The roar of laughter at civilization’s end.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If all you've got is just enough talent to get along, sooner or later you'll betray yourself.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You takes things too seriously. It seems you’re not satisfied unless you always make yourself the protagonist in some tragedy.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are some people whose dread of human beings is so morbid that they reach a point where they yearn to see with their own eyes monsters of ever more horrible shapes. And the more nervous they are-the quicker to take fright-the more violent they pray that every storm will be … Painters who have had this mentality, after repeated wounds and intimidations at the hands of the apparitions called human beings, have often come to believe in phantasms-they plainly saw monsters in broad daylight, in the midst of nature. And they did not fob people off with clowning; they did their best to depict these monsters just as they had appeared. Takeichi was right: they had dared to paint pictures of devils.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer "Nothing." The thought went through my mind that it didn't make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy. At the same time I was congenitally unable to refuse anything offered to me by another person, no matter how little it might suit my tastes. When I hated something, I could not pronounce the words, “I don’t like it.” When I liked something I tasted it hesitantly, furtively, as though it were extremely bitter. In either case I was torn by unspeakable fear. In other words, I hadn’t the strength even to choose between two alternatives.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Though I have always made it my practice to be pleasant to everybody, I have not once actually experienced friendship. I have only the most painful recollections of my various acquaintances with the exception of such companions in pleasure as Horiki. I have frantically played the clown in order to disentangle myself from these painful relationships, only to wear myself out as a result. Even now it comes as a shock if by chance I notice in the street a face resembling someone I know however slightly, and I am at once seized by a shivering violent enough to make me dizzy. I know that I am liked by other people, but I seem to be deficient in the faculty to love others. (I should add that I have very strong doubts as to whether even human beings really possess this faculty.) It was hardly to be expected that someone like myself could ever develop any close friends—besides, I lacked even the ability to pay visits. The front door of another person’s house terrified me more than the gate of Inferno in the Divine Comedy, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I really felt I could detect within the door the presence of a horrible dragon-like monster writhing there with a dank, raw smell.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What, I wondered, did he mean by “society”? The plural of human beings? Where was the substance of this thing called “society”? I had spent my whole life thinkng that society must certainly be something powerful, harsh and severe, but to hear Horiki talk made the words “Don’t you mean yourself?” come to the tip of my tongue. But I held the words back, reluctant to anger him. ‘Society won’t stand for it.’ ‘It’s not society. You’re the one who won’t stand for it - right?’ ‘If you do such a thing society will make you suffer for it.’ ‘It’s not society. It’s you, isn’t it?’ ‘Before you know it, you’ll be ostracized by society.’ ‘It’s not society. You’re going to do the ostracizing, aren’t you?’ Words, words of every kind went flitting through my head. “Know thy particular fearsomeness, thy knavery, cunning and witchcraft!” What I said, however, as I wiped the perspiration from my face with a handkerchief was merely, “You’ve put me in a cold sweat!” I smiled. From then on, however, I came to hold, almost as a philosophical conviction, the belief: What is society but an individual?”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Society. I felt as though even I were beginning at last to acquire some vague notion of what it meant. It is a struggle between one individual to another, a then-and-there struggle, in which the immediate triumph is everything. ‘Human beings never submit to human beings.’ Even slaves practice their mean retaliations. Human beings cannot conceive of any mean retaliations. Human beings cannot conceive of any means of survival except of a single then-and-there contest. They speak of duty to one’s country and such like things, but the object of their effort is invariably the individual, and, even once the individual’s needs have been met, again the individual comes in. The incomprehensibility of society is the incomprehensibility of the individual. The ocean is not society; it is individuals. This is how I managed to gain a modicum of freedom from my terror of the illusion of the ocean called the world. I learned to behave rather aggressively, without the endless anxious worrying I knew before, responding as it were to the needs of the moment.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another. But I have no special interest in instances of mutual deception. I myself spent the whole day long deceiving human beings with my clowning. I have not been able to work much up much concern over the morality prescribed in textbooks of ethics under the name as “righteousness.” I find it difficult to understand the kind of human being who lives, or who is sure he can live, purely, happily, serenely while engaged in deceit. Human beings never did teach me that abstruse secret. If I had only known that one thing I should never have had to dread human beings so, nor should I have opposed myself to human life, nor tasted such torments of hell every night.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source