Jacob

“To adore. To be adored.” What vulgar words, there is something shallow and too self-satisfied in them. Just when these words are spoken on a festive occasion, a magnificent temple starts to fall, and after that, there is only complete indifference.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“He was on the verge of saying something kind, but decided it was too much trouble and stopped.”
― Natsume Sōseki, And Then

“Considering that I tried to be friendly with everyone, I was never honoured with anyone's “friendship”. Horiki and other friends for entertainment like him, do not count. Every communication left me with a bitter feeling, and to get rid of it I had to play out a barbed comedy routine, but it only wore me out even more. And if I happened to accidentally meet someone I knew, or even a person who just looked like one of the rare people I knew, it sent shivers down my spine. When it happened that I was well regarded, I was not able to love people. (Speaking of which, I doubt that in this world such “love for people” exists.) Consequently, “friendship“ was something I was unable to reach, I could not even manage such a simple gesture as a “friendly visit“. I associated the gates of other people's houses with the gates of hell, behind which a bloodthirsty and monstrous dragon was waiting for me. I had no friends. I had nowhere to go.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“The litany of what I did want? To be challenged. To not live in the safety of my own little snow globe and be reassured by familiarity and surrounded by what made me comfortable and coddled me. To stand in other people’s shoes and see how they saw the world—especially if they were outsiders and monsters and freaks who would lead me as far away as possible from whatever my comfort zone supposedly was—because I sensed I was that outsider, that monster, that freak. I craved being shaken. I loved ambiguity. I wanted to change my mind, about one thing and another, virtually anything. I wanted to get upset and even be damaged by art. I wanted to get wiped out by the cruelty of someone’s vision of the world, whether it was Shakespeare or Scorsese, Joan Didion or Dennis Cooper. And all of this had a profound effect. It gave me empathy. It helped me realize that another world existed beyond my own, with other viewpoints and backgrounds and proclivities, and I have no doubt that this aided me in becoming an adult. It moved me away from the narcissism of childhood and into the world’s mysteries—the unexplained, the taboo, the other—and drew me closer to a place of understanding and acceptance.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, White