John Pappano

“He clasped her tighter, feeling their two bodies shake like the mast of a plunging ship.”
― Yukio Mishima, Runaway Horses: The Sea of Fertility, 2

“Two men may talk together enthusiastically for an hour or so about shared experiences, and yet not have a true conversation. A lonely man who wants to indulge his nostalgic mood feels the need of someone with whom to share it. When he finds such a companion, he starts to pour out his monologue as though recounting a dream. And so the talk goes on between them, their monologues alternating, but after a time they suddenly become aware that they have nothing to say to each other. They are like two men standing at either side of a chasm, the bridge across which has been destroyed.”
― Yukio Mishima, Runaway Horses

“HOW ODDLY SITUATED a man is apt to find himself at age thirty-eight! His youth belongs to the distant past. Yet the period of memory beginning with the end of youth and extending to the present has left him not a single vivid impression. And therefore he persists in feeling that nothing more than a fragile barrier separates him from his youth. He is forever hearing with the utmost clarity the sounds of this neighboring domain, but there is no way to penetrate the barrier.”
― Yukio Mishima, Runaway Horses: The Sea of Fertility, 2

“By and large, there’s no mystery in human life. Mystery remains only in the arts, and the reason is that mystery makes sense only in art.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3