Quotes from Yukio Mishima

Hanio believed that his ideas were all rooted in meaninglessness and they blossomd into life at the very moment when meaning was created. For that reason, he never once initiated any action on the grounds that it was meaningful. People who ascribe meaning to their actions ended up staring meaninglessness in the face, in a state of frustration and hopelessness.

Kiyoaki's pride was hurt. Satoko, with a boldness that might be construed as unfeminine, had pointed out the dog's corpse, ignoring its ominous implications. She had adopted a suitably pleasant and straightforward tone of voice, which bore witness to her elegant upbringing; she had the freshness of ripe fruit in a crystal bowl. Kiyoaki was ashamed of his hesitation, and felt cowed by Satoko's capacity for directness.

Puesto que la vida es un extravio, se diría que el más sensato de los desengaños consiste en elaborar un extravio artificial, ordenado y lógico, en el mismo interior de ese extravio enmarañado e incontrolable.

A telephone - it seems a long time since I last saw one. It's a strange device, constantly entangling the emotions of human beings within itself, yet capable of uttering nothing more than a simple bell tone. Doesn't it feel any pain from all the loves, the hatreds, and the desires that pass through it? Or is the sound of that bell really a scream of the pain, convulsive and unendurable, that the telephone continually inflicts?

The estrangement of body and spirit in modern society is an almost universal phenomenon, and there is nobody—the reader may feel—who would fail to deplore it; so that to prate emotionally about the body "thinking" or the "loquacity" of the flesh is going too far, and by using such phrases I am merely covering up my own confusion.

Como les sucede a tantos jovenes, pues vivir la juventud es una muerte impetuosa y constante, ellos aspiraban continuamente a una nueva destrucción. Un hermoso joven en el umbral de la muerte debe tener una sonrisa en los labios.

Emprender un viaje produce un sentimiento misterioso. Uno cree haberse liberado no sólo de los lugares que quedan a sus espaldas, sino tambien del tiempo que deja detrás de si.

The earth is surrounded by death. The upper regions, where there is no air, are crowded with death pure and unalloyed; it gazes down on humanity going about its business far below and bound by its physical conditions on earth, yet very seldom does it bring bodily death to man, since those same physical conditions prevent him from climbing this far. For man to encounter the universe as he is, with uncovered countenance, is death.

The greatest antidote for despair was the faith of a man and woman in each other.

Um onnagata é uma criança nascida da união ilícita entre sonho e realidade.

Mes nesusiduriame su savo lemtimi netik?tai. Vyras, kuriam kažkada bus ?vykdyta mirties bausm?, visuomet - pakeliui ? darb? pamat?s elektros stulp?, pereidamas traukinio b?gius - mintyse piešia vietos, kurioje jam bus ?vykdyta mirties bausm? vaizdin?, artimiau su juo susipaž?sta.

How alike were the voices of pleasure and death!

El amor sólo puede nacer de la desesperación. El espiritu contra la naturaleza...el movimiento del espiritu hacia esa imposibilidad de comunicación es el amor.

Wat een - hoe zal ik het zeggen - verblindend iets was dat hoongelach. Het wrede, bij hun leeftijd passende gelach van mijn klasgenoten leek mij een felle schittering te zijn als van licht, dat van een bundel baderen terugkaatst.

Cuando la intimidad carnal se viste con la dignidad de una indumentaria como la que llevaban los dos esa tarde, engendra una tensión contenida tal que parece que los cuerpos, aguantando el aliento, estuvieran llamándose el uno al otro. Es lo que se llama la 'filosofía del atuendo'.

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.

Sometimes, as he listened to the song or hummed it, tears brimmed in his eyes, just as in the lyrics. Strange that a man with no ties should become sentimental about a 'harbour town', but the tears welled directly from a dark, distant, enervated part of himself he had neglected all his life and couldn't command.

still, the loss of something is significant, and I think that loss is the necessary source of a new manifestation.

No hay mayor seguridad que la de no saber hacia qué destino te dirigen tus pasos.

Se había entregado al trabajo con la esperanza de haberlo ya olvidado, pero cuando dejaba la tienda el último cliente y el local quedaba en calma, le llegaba el burbujeo de la fuente del patio y, al escucharlo, el terror la asediaba. Entonces, se daba cuenta de que estaba esperando...

Cuando se trata de satisfacer al corazón, ningún vicio estaba a la altura de la hipocresía

My happiness lies in your hands. Be careful with it, won't you?

It was suitable that he, whose life had been so incomparably pure a structure, should suffer the pure death of an accident. In that collision, which had lasted no more than a second, there had been a sudden contact and his life had merged with his death. A swift chemical action. Without doubt it was only by such a drastic method that this strange, shadowless young man could join both his shadow and his death.

Non gli dispiaceva raccontare di sé, ma era spaventoso come l'evocazione dei ricordi servisse solo a rendere la sua esistenza sempre più ambigua e incerta. [...] la parte di ricordanze che aveva la funzione di controllo e di indagine non andava forse accumulandosi di nascosto come letame?" pp.1338-9, Yukio Mishima, Romanzi e Racconti, La casa di Kyoko, volume 1, i Meridiani