Reid

“Why these daily wanderings through the streets? And all these human beings I encountered: how could they possibly help me? Each of them filled the universe with his or her person. I would trail humbly after them, expecting the unworkable miracle from the first person I bumped into. Then, in order to prove to myself that I was not merely this pitiful rag, this insubstantial object, I would force myself to hate them, well knowing that my hate was artificial, that it too had no existence, that I was turning it on like a lamp in a ruin that had stood deserted for hundreds of years, as though this light was all that was needed to establish the belief that it was lived-in. And I was incapable of retaining my hold even on hate. It gave me the slip, like all the rest, like everything around me. All I could do was roam the streets, an innocent in quest of a miracle.”
― Anna Langfus; Peter Wiles

“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, The Flowers of Buffoonery

“Young people never say anything straight. You can tell they're being honest if they hide behind a laugh.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Flowers of Buffoonery

“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, The Flowers of Buffoonery