Pokku > Pokku's Quotes

“I couldn't save Kataoka.
"If I loved him, I had to grant him his last wish.
"So I told him what he wanted to hear.
"I said, 'No, you're no longer human.'"
I hadn't been able to say anything.
I couldn't speak, I couldn't move, I couldn't understand a word of what Miu was telling me.
"Kataoka smiled kindly.
"Like he was thanking me.
"Then he jumped off the roof.
"Osamu Dazai and I killed him.”
― Mizuki Nomura, Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime

“Despising each other as we did, we were constantly together, thereby degrading ourselves. If that is what the world calls friendship, the relations between Horiki and myself were undoubtedly those of friendship.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“I have one request to make of you, which embarrasses me very much. You remember the hemp kimono of Mother's which you altered so that I could wear it next summer? Please put it in my coffin. I wanted to wear it.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Today, while Mother was watching me work, she suddenly remarked, “They say that people who like summer flowers die in the summer. I wonder if it’s true.” I did not answer but went on watering the eggplants. It is already the beginning of summer. She continued softly, “I am very fond of hibiscus, but we haven’t a single one in this garden.”
“We have plenty of oleanders,” I answered in an intentionally sharp tone.
“I don’t like them. I like almost all summer flowers, but oleanders are too loud.”
“I like roses best. But they bloom in all four seasons. I wonder if people who like roses best have to die four times over again.”
We both laughed.”
― Osamu Dazai

“I have frantically played the clown in order to distangle myself from these painful relationships, only to wear myself out as a result.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“If it failed I had no choice but to hang myself, a resolve which was tantamount to a bet on the existence of God.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“I must go on living. And, though it may be childish of me, I can't go on in simple compliance. From now on I must struggle with the world. I thought that Mother might well be the last of those who can end their lives beautifully and sadly, struggling with no one, neither hating nor betraying anyone. In the world to come there will be no room for such people. The dying are beautiful, but to live, to survive--those things somehow seem hideous and contaminated with blood.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to kill you, Polonius. The blade slipped out of the sheath, and it struck you.”
― Osamu Dazai, A New Hamlet

“A mere smile can determine a woman's fate. It is frightening. Fascinatingly so. I have to be careful.”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“I drew with extremely excessively depressed emotions, deliberately penning each line, only to earn money for drink.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“no matter how difficult, because I would have a purpose in life, I would have hope.”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“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, Blue Bamboo: Japanese Tales of Fantasy

“In time, when we became adults, we might look back on this pain and loneliness as a funny thing, perfectly ordinary, but—but how were we expected to get by, to get through this interminable period of time until that point when we were adults? There was no one to teach us how. Was there nothing to do but leave us alone, like we had the measles? But people died from the measles, or went blind. You couldn't just leave them alone. Some of us, in our daily depressions and rages, were apt to stray, to become corrupted, irreparably so, and then our lives would be forever in disorder. There were even some who would resolve to kill themselves. And when that happened, everyone would say, Oh, if only she had lived a little longer she would have known, if she were a little more grown up she would have figured it out. How saddened they would all be. But if those people were to think about it from our perspective, and see how we had tried to endure despite how terribly painful it all was, and how we had even tried to listen carefully, as hard as we could, to what the world might have to say, they would see that, in the end, the same bland lessons were always being repeated over and over, you know, well, merely to appease us.”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“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, Blue Bamboo: Japanese Tales of Fantasy

“Despising each other as we did, we were constantly together, thereby degrading ourselves. If that is what the world calls friendship, the relations between he and myself were undoubtedly those of friendship”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“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, パンドラの匣

“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, パンドラの匣

“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, Otogizōshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu

“We continued to walk without talking. I thought that from now on I will carefully look at the faces of women I encounter, and to some degree, the innocent, transparent beauty of Mabo will appear in all of their faces. Women have become womanly. But the change is not in the women before the world war. The new womanliness has experienced the suffering of war”
― Osamu Dazai, パンドラの匣

“To break free from this vexatious and awful never-ending cycle, this flood of outrageous thoughts, and to long for nothing more than simply to sleep—how clean, how pure, the mere thought of it is exhilarating.”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“I go about saying how pained and tormented, how lonely and sad I feel, but what do I really mean by that? If I were to speak the truth, I would die.”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“Tomorrow will probably be another day like today. Happiness will never come my way. I know that. But it's probably best to go to sleep believing that it will surely come, tomorrow it will come. I purposely made a loud thump as I fell into bed. Ah, that feels good. The futon was cool, just the right temperature against my back, and it was simply delightful. Sometimes happiness arrives one night too late. The thought occurred to me as I lay there. You wait and wait for happiness, and when finally you can't bear it any longer, you rush out of the house, only to hear later that a marvelous happiness arrived the following day at the home you had abandoned, and now it was too late. Sometimes happiness arrives one night too late. Happiness... I”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“Heaven forbid if beauty were to have substance.”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“Heaven forbid if beauty were to have substance. Genuine beauty is always meaningless, without virtue”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“The thought occurred to me as I lay there. You wait and wait for happiness, and when finally you can't bear it any longer, you rush out of the house, only to hear later that a marvelous happiness arrived the following day at the home you had abandoned, and now it was too late. Sometimes happiness arrives one night too late.”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“They scolded us for not having any real hopes or real ambitions, but if we were to pursue our true ideals, would these people watch and guide us along the way?”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“Excessively passionate characters have a tendency to behave poorly.”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“I want to love everyone', I thought, almost tearfully. If you stare at the sky, it changes little by little. Gradually it turns bluish. [..] I had never seen anything as beautiful as the translucent leaves and grass. Gently, I reached out to the touch of the grass.”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“The thought occurred to me as I lay there. You wait and wait for happiness, and when finally you can't bear it any longer, you rush out of the house, only to hear later that a marvelous happiness arrived the following day at the home you had abandoned, and now it was too late. Sometimes happiness arrives one night too late. Happiness...”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“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, No Longer Human