“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.
Everything passes.
That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.
Everything passes.”
― No Longer Human
Everything passes.
That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.
Everything passes.”
― No Longer Human
“To see human beings in agony, to see them covered in blood and to hear their death groans, makes people humble. It makes their spirits delicate, bright, peaceful. It's never at such times that we become cruel or bloodthirsty. No, it's on a beautiful spring afternoon like this that people suddenly become cruel. It's at a moment like this, don't you think, while one's vaguely watching the sun as it peeps through the leaves of the trees above a well-mown lawn? Every possible nightmare in the world, every possible nightmare in history, has come into being like this.”
― The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
― The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
“Abruptly he thrust his snow-drenched leather gloves against my cheeks.
I dodged. A raw carnal feeling blazed up within me, branding my cheeks. I felt myself staring at him with crystal clear eyes...
From that time on I was in love with Omi.”
― Confessions of a Mask
I dodged. A raw carnal feeling blazed up within me, branding my cheeks. I felt myself staring at him with crystal clear eyes...
From that time on I was in love with Omi.”
― Confessions of a Mask
“What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity…”
― Confessions of a Mask
― Confessions of a Mask
“I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.”
― No Longer Human
― No Longer Human
Isa’s 2025 Year in Books
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