Quotes from Osamu Dazai

What superficiality—and what stupidity—there is in trying to depict in a pretty manner things which one has thought pretty. The masters through their subjective perceptions created beauty out of trivialities. They did not hide their interest even in things which were nauseatingly ugly, but soaked themselves in the pleasure of depicting them. In other words, they seemed not to rely in the least on the misconceptions of others.

the manner of speech of everybody in the world—held strange, elusive complexities, intricately presented with overtones of vagueness: I have always been baffled by these precautions so strict as to be useless, and by the intensely irritating little maneuvers surrounding them.

We have a vague notion of the best place we should go, or the beautiful places we should like to see, or the kinds of places that would make us grow as a person. We yearn for a good life. We have real hopes and ambitions. We feel impatient for an unshakable faith that we can rely on. But it would require considerable effort to express such things in our typical life as a girl.

I hope for a revolution in ethics and morals. Then, my obsequiousness and this need to plod through life according to others' expectations would simply dissolve.

To wait. In our lives we know joy, anger, sorrow, and a hundred other emotions, but these emotions all together occupy a bare one per cent of our time. The remaining ninety-nine per cent is just living in waiting.

I slept quietly so that I would breathe without coughing, and felt a curious indifference. I even felt like I had been waiting for that night for a long time. The words "heart's desire" came to mind.

Now, I will make better use of my body and be useful by increasing food production just a little, then I will bid farewell to this world. It would be good to lighten the burden on this country. That is my path to best serve my country as a useless invalid. I want to die soon.

I wanted once in my lifetime to know that great savage joy, no matter how immense the suffering that might ensue.

Despising each other as we did, we were constantly together, thereby degrading ourselves

He's probably quite good at mathematical calculations, but he doesn't seem to have ever handled accounts of money. Because we have always been poor,

We all live a sheet of paper away from death, so we shouldn't be surprised by death.

The source of our laughter is the small stone that tumbled into a corner of Pandora's box.

I think humanity is universal love and no one should be banished. The natural love of humanity is not to be forgotten under any circumstances.

I thought that in killing a dreaded adversary I might actually be bringing him happiness.

To begin with, I believe a fatal contradiction lies between women's right to vote and lipstick. Those guys usually aren't popular with the ladies. Without a doubt, this is a plan for revenge.

American planes circled the clear blue sky of late fall. We stood in front of the Miyoshino-style building and looked up at them. "They're flying around in vain." "Yeah," Mabo said with a smile.

There are some whose dread of human beings is so morbid that they reach a point where they yearn to see with their own eyes monsters of ever more horrible shapes.

But the planes have a new elegant shape. Not one unnecessary ornament." "Yes," said Mabo softly and watched the planes fly off through the sky with a childlike innocence. "A form with no unneeded ornaments is nice.

Far from it, I felt convinced that their reprimands were without doubt voices of human truth speaking to me from eternities past; I was obsessed with the idea that since I lacked the strength to act in accordance with this truth, I might already have been disqualified from living among human beings.

My surroundings are becoming as bright as I am. Until now, usually, haven't the places we appeared automatically become bright and splendid?

Thirty. "Something of the maiden's fragrance lingers with a woman until she is twenty-nine, but nothing is left about the body of the woman of thirty years.

He was dead, that familiar, frightening presence who had never left my heart for a split second. I felt as though the vessel of my suffering had become empty, as if nothing could interest me now. I had lost even the ability to suffer.

After that, there is nothing more to say. We will move straight ahead at the perfect pace, neither too fast nor too slow. Where does this road lead? Perhaps, you should ask a growing vine. The vine may answer. "I don't know. But I grow toward the sunlight.

Incluso ahora pienso que los enfrentamientos entre pobres y ricos es un tema de parece caduco, pero que siempre formará parte de las tragedias