Quotes from Osamu Dazai

Last year nothing happened The year before nothing happened And the year before that nothing happened.

All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? - I don't know.

Unhappiness. There are all kinds of unhappy people in the world. I suppose it would be no exaggeration to say that the world is composed entirely of unhappy people. But those people can fight their unhappiness with society fairly and squarly, and society for its part easily understands and sympathizes with such struggles. My unhappiness stemmed entirely from my own vices, and I had no way of fighting anybody.

Living itself is the source of sin.

The thought of dying has never bothered me, but getting hurt, losing blood, becoming crippled and the like—no thanks.

I am afraid because I can so clearly foresee my own life rotting away of itself, like a leaf that rots without falling, while I pursue my round of existence from day to day.

To wait. In our lives we know joy, anger, sorrow, and a hundred other emotions, but these emotions all together occupy a bare one percent of our time. The remaining ninety-nine percent is just living in waiting. I wait in momentary expectation, feeling as though my breasts are being crushed, for the sound in the corridor of the footsteps of happiness. Empty. Oh, life is too painful, the reality that confirms the universal belief that it is best not to be born.

The world, after all, was still a place of bottomless horror. It was by no means a place of childlike simplicity where everything could be settled by a simple then-and-there decision.

After being hurt by the world so much, they began to see the demons within humans. So without hiding it through trickery, they worked to express it.

I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to believe in the existence of heaven.

I like roses best. But they bloom in all four seasons. I wonder if people who like roses best have to die four times over again.

The weak fear happiness itself.

I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.

Is it not true that no two human beings understand anything whatsoever about each other, that those who consider themselves bosom friends may be utterly mistaken about their fellow and, failing to realize this sad truth throughout a lifetime, weep when they read in the newspapers about his death?

In my case such an expression as 'to be fallen for' or even 'to be loved' is not in the least appropriate; perhaps it describes the situation more accurately to say that I was 'looked after.

I want to spend my time with people who don't look to be respected. But such good people won't want to spend their time with me.

What is society but an individual? [...] The ocean is not society; it is individuals. This was how I managed to gain a modicum of freedom from my terror at the illusion of the ocean called the world.

I was frightened even by God. I could not believe in His love, only in His punishment. Faith. That, I felt, was the act of facing the tribunal of justice with one's head bowed to receive the scourge of God. I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to believe in the existence of heaven.

Anyway, you can be sure of one thing, a man's got to fake just to stay alive.

In spite of my suffering, at the thought that I was sure to end up by killing myself, I cried aloud and burst into tears.

Is it painful to be the person who waits? Or is it more painful to be the person who makes others wait? Either way, there's no need to wait anymore. That's what is most painful." - Osamu Dazai

Heaven forbid if beauty were to have substance.

Victims. Victims of a transitional period of morality. That is what we both certainly are.

It made me miserable that I was rapidly becoming an adult and that I was unable to do anything about it.