Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ

“Do you remember my friend Fumiko Kobayashi? She loaned me a book by a university professor named Taki Sugiyama Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behaviour, and she writes that death, particularly voluntary death, is surrounded in this country by a heroic, romantic, aesthetic and emotional aura. She says we often find it hard to communicate and use suicide to make our ideas, or beliefs, or sufferings known. I don't know whether I believe that or not.”
― James Trager, Letters from Sachiko: A Japanese Woman's View of Life in the Land of the Economic Miracle

“Speech blossoms from anxiety… words were fermented from the uncertainty of existence, like poisonous red mushrooms sprout from the rotting earth. It’s true we have words of joy and pleasure, but aren’t those the most unnatural and contrived of them all? Apparently, human beings experience anxiety even in the midst of joy. But in a place without anxiety, there’s no need for such ignoble contrivances.”
― Osamu Dazai, Urashima san

“I know how affected this sounds, but I want to die so bad I can’t stand it. From the time I was born, all I’ve ever thought about is dying. It would be better for everybody if I did—that’s clear enough. But I can’t seem to do it. Some strange kind of, fearsome kind of god keeps stopping me... My work means nothing. I have no masterpieces and no spectacular failures. If people say a piece is good, it’s good, and if they say it’s bad, it’s bad. It’s like breathing—in and out, in and out. What scares me is that, somewhere in this world, there is a God. There really is one, right?... There is a God, right?”
― Osamu Dazai, ヴィヨンの妻 [Viyon No Tsuma]

“He would show up not with women but with two or three newspaper or magazine reporters. According to some of these fellows, now that the military had fallen, the impoverished poets and artists were going to be the new public heroes.”
― Osamu Dazai, ヴィヨンの妻 [Viyon No Tsuma]