Donât think I killed you, Bear, because I hate you. I have to make a living, just as you have to be shot. Iâd like to do different work, work with no sin attached, but Iâve got no fields, and they say my trees belong to the authorities, and when I go to the village nobody will have anything to do with me. Iâm a hunter because I canât help it. Itâs fate that made you a bear, and itâs fate that makes me do this work. Make sure youâre not reborn as a bear next time!
Miyazawa Kenji, âThe Bears of Nametokoâ, The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories
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The writer is often taken for a story-teller even when he tells the facts.
Nakajima Atsushi, Light, Wind, and Dreams
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I stroked the trunk of a pine tree. The tree trunk was alive and warm like blood was coursing through it. I crouched down, surprised by the strong smell of grass at my feet, and scooped up some dirt in both hands. I was impressed by the weight of the dampness. To say nature lives is obvious, but a stronger feeling of realism comes with natural scents. But that wonder vanished in about ten minutes. Then I felt nothing. Numbness set in, and indifference returned.
Dazai Osamu, Pandoraâs Box
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With this ax
I strike my koto!
Listen!
The sound of lifeâs end!
Of Godâs will!
- Yosano Akiko, âTangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Midaregamiâ
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Yes, you may well knit your brows, after hearing of all my cruel acts. Surely not even the devil himself could have surpassed me in villainy. And yet, I still insist that all my wickedness was the result of unbearable boredom. I killed - but only for the sake of killing! I harbored no malice toward any of my victims. In short, murder was for me a sort of game. Do you think I am mad? A homicidal maniac? Of course you do. But I do not care, for I believe I am in good company. Birds of a feather, you know⊠.
Edogawa Ranpo, âThe Red Chamberâ from Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination
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I have the misfortune of being by nature incapable of making small talk with strangers, and I was so afraid that this elderly gentleman was going to try to engage me in conversation that I wanted only to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Dazai Osamu, âA Little Beautyâ from Self Portraits
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And so I reached the age of twenty-five, having barely cast a glance at anything but books and ruins and knowing nothing of life; I spent all my fervor in my work. I loved a few friends⊠but it was not so much my friends I loved as friendship - it was a craving for high-mindedness that made my devotion to them so great; I cherished in myself each and all of my fine feelings. For the rest, I knew my friends as little as I knew myself.
André Gide, The Immoralist
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Morning - keen sunlight shines
and there is a breeze.
A thousand angles
play basketball.
I shut my eyes,
a sad drunk.
A stove beyond repair
is rusting to a flaky white.
Morning - keen sunlight shines
and there is a breeze.
A thousand angels
play basketball.
- Nakahara ChĆ«ya, âHung-overâ from Poems of the Goat
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I feel no great yearning for the past even when I write about distant times. I am far luckier to have been born in present-day Japan than in the Heian or Edo periods.
Akutagawa RyĆ«nosuke, found in Donald Keeneâs Dawn to the West, page 559-60
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It occurred to me that a man like myself who dreads human beings, shuns and deceives them, might on the surface seem strikingly like another man who reveres the clever, wordly-wise rules for success embodied in the proverb âLet sleeping dogs lie.â
Dazai Osamu, No Longer Human
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His loneliness was real, quite real. He couldnât help feeling as if he were surrounded by a void, by an emptiness. And that too was all right. It might be possible that out of his loneliness a novel might be created.
Mori Ćgai, âYouthâ from Youth and Other Stories
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Get thee back into the tempest and the Nightâs Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! â quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!â
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.â
- Edgar Allan Poe, âThe Ravenâ
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As long as you have the desire to be somebody, you will not fall into decadence. And you donât have that kind of goal. You are passionate about wanting to see what it is like to fail.
Dazai Osamu, A New Hamlet
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Sometimes he felt that it would be best to be done with it all and to be called into the army. If only he could escape from the anguish of thinking, even bullets and starvation might seem a blessing.
Sakaguchi Ango, âThe Idiotâ in Modern Japanese Stories: An Anthology
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A person must have courage. Courage means to be strong, to have a nature that fears nothing. Whatever you have decided to do, you should persist, and without fearing hardships keep at it till you finishâŠ. Have courage and persevere.
Fukuzawa Yukichi, âDaily Lessonsâ from Fukuzawa Yukichi on Education
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The old fireside was joyful indeed. This fire is one of sorrow. No, no. Past is past. And now is now. How pleasantly this fire burns.
Kunikida Doppo, âThe Bonfireâ, The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories
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Her eyes were moist, as if brimming with tears. That clinched it. She was a swindler. When people are lying, their eyes always water - itâs a rule with no exception.
Dazai Osamu, âThinking of Zenzoâ from Self Portraits
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