Great Throughts Treasury

"I somehow looked forward to death impatiently, with a sweet expectation."

"I still have no way to survive but to keep writing one line, one more line, one more line..."

"I stood on one side of the lake Kyoko, and the setting sun shone bright facade of the Hereafter. Fisherman pavilion Sosset was half hidden from the main campus. Temple threw astonishing in its perfection shadow on algae-covered surface of the lake. Shadow superior beauty of the building. The setting sun made ??the reflection in the water dangles on the eaves of the three floors. Unlike light around these glare blinded eyes and prevent them from covering the dimensions of the temple. So he looked like a picture distorted perspective."

"I understand, my dear, what brings you to me. Midzoguchi your name, right? Once you think you can be friends just because we are both disabled, so I do not mind. But really you think that compared to my disability you who knows what? Too many think to yourself, boy. And therefore less attention to the defect."

"I want to make a poem of my life."

"I seemed like a baby bird keeping its truly innocent animal lusts hidden under its wing. I was being tempted, not by the desire of possession, but simply by unadorned temptation itself."

"I had long since insisted upon interpreting the things that Fate forced me to do as victories of my own will and intelligence, and now this bad habit had grown into a sort of frenzied arrogance. In the nature of what I was calling my intelligence there was a touch of something illegitimate, a touch of the sham pretender who has been placed on the throne by some freak chance. This dolt of a usurper could not foresee the revenge that would inevitably be wreaked upon his stupid despotism."

"I had no taste for defeat ? much less victory ? without a fight."

"I had formed the habit of treating those parts of my character that were in any way my responsibility to exhortations so wholesome and sensible as to be comical. As a part of my system of self-discipline, dating from childhood, I constantly told myself it would be better to die than become a lukewarm person, an unmanly person, a person who does not clearly know his likes and dislikes, a person who wants only to be loved without knowing how to love. This exhortation of course had a possible applicability to the parts of my character for which I was to blame, but so far as the other parts were concerned, the parts for which I was not to blame, it was an impossible requirement from the beginning."

"I received an impassioned letter from Sonoko. There was no doubt that she was truly in love. I felt jealous. Mine was the unbearable jealousy a cultured pearl must feel toward a genuine one. Or can there be such a thing in this world as a man who is jealous of the woman who loves him, precisely because of her love?"

"I wanted to explode, light the sky for an instant and disappear."

"I was born with gloomy nature. I do not think I have ever known what it is to be cheerful and at ease."

"If my self was my dwelling, then my body resembled an orchard that surrounded it. I could either cultivate that orchard to its capacity or leave it for the weeds to run riot in. There are some truths in this world that one cannot see unless one unbends one's posture."

"If the world changed, I could not exist, and if I changed, the world could not exist."

"In its essence, any art that relies on words makes use of their ability to eat away ? of their corrosive function ? just as etching depends on the corrosive power of nitric acid."

"In Kyoto I never experienced an air raid, but once when I was sent to the main factory in Osaka with some orders for spare parts for aircraft, there happened to be an attack and I saw one of the factory workers being carried out on a stretcher with his intestines exposed. What is so ghastly about exposed intestines? Why, when we see the insides of a human being do we have to cover our eyes in terror? Why are people so shocked by the sight of blood pouring out? Why are a man's intestines ugly? Is it not exactly the same in quality as the beauty of youthful, glossy skin? What sort of face would Tsurukawa make if I were to say that it was from him I had learned this manner of speaking - a manner of thinking that transformed my own ugliness into nothingness? Why does there seem to be something inhuman about regarding human beings like roses and refusing to make any distinction between the inside of their bodies and the outside? If only human beings could reverse their spirits and their bodies, could gracefully turn them inside out like rose petals and expose them to the spring breeze and the sun . . ."

"In the flesh, friends are always changing and enthusiasms of a certain part of life fade over time, making room for other enthusiasms shared with new friends. In a way, the same is true for books. Certainly There are also times when a book that inspired us in childhood, reread many years, loses its attraction alive and appears as a mere body of the book that we remember. But the biggest difference between friends and books is that while friends are changing, books remain the same. Adutaining dust, in a neglected corner of the library, a book stubbornly retains the character and philosophy. Ultimately, read or not accepting it or rejecting it, we can change our attitude only a book about her, and nothing more."

"If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death. No death may be called futile."

"I'll be going now, she said. Shinji made no answer and a surprised look came over his face. He had caught sight of a black streak that ran straight across the front of her red sweater. Hatsue followed his gaze and saw the dirty smudge, just in the spot where she had been leaning her breast against the concrete parapet. Bending her head, she started slapping her breast with her open hands. Beneath her sweater, which all but seemed to be concealing some firm supports, two gently swelling mounds were set to trembling ever so slightly by the brisk brushing of her hands. Shinji stared in wonder. Struck by her hands, the breasts seemed more like two small, playful animals. The boy was deeply stirred by the resilient softness of their movement. The streak of dirt was finally brushed out."

"If we look on idly, heaven and earth will never be joined. To join heaven and earth, some decisive deed of purity is necessary. To accomplish so resolute an action, you have to stake your life, giving no thought to personal gain or loss. You have to turn into a dragon and stir up a whirlwind, tear the dark, brooding clouds asunder and soar up into the azure-blue sky."

"In the woodblock prints of the Genroku period one often finds the features of a pair of lovers to be surprisingly similar, with little to distinguish the man from the woman. The universal ideal of beauty in Greek sculpture likewise approaches a close resemblance between the male and female. Might this not be one of the secrets of love? Might it not be that through the innermost recesses of love there courses an unattainable longing in which both the man and the woman desire to become the exact image of the other? Might not this longing drive them on, leading at last to a tragic reaction in which they seek to attain the impossible by going to the opposite extreme? In short, since their mutual love cannot achieve a perfection of mutual identity, is there not a mental process whereby each of them tries instead to emphasize their points of dissimilarity?the man his manliness and the woman her womanliness?and uses this very revolt as a form of coquetry toward the other? Or if they do achieve a similarity, it unfortunately lasts for only a fleeting moment of illusion. Because, as the girl becomes more bold and the boy more shy, there comes an instant at which they pass each other going in opposite directions, overshooting their mark and passing on beyond to some point where the mark no longer exists."

"Insensitive people are only upset when they actually see the blood, but actually by the time that the blood has been shed the tragedy has already completed."

"Isao had never felt that he might want to be a woman. He had never wished for anything else but to be a man, live in a manly way, die a manly death. To be thus a man was to give constant proof of one?s manliness?to be more a man today than yesterday, more a man tomorrow than today. To be a man was to forge ever upward toward the peak of manhood, there to die amid the white snows of that peak. But to be a woman? It seemed to mean being a woman at the beginning and being a woman forever."

"In the very simplicity of her desire to punish herself appeared egoism in its purest form. Never before had this woman who seemed to think only of herself experienced an egoism so immaculate."

"In the pale light of daybreak the gravestones looked like so many white sails of boats anchored in a busy harbor. They were sails that would never again be filled with wind, sails that, too long unused and heavily drooping, had been turned into stone just as they were. The boats' anchors had been thrust so deeply into the dark earth that they could never again be raised."

"Is there not a sort of remorse that precedes sin? Was it remorse at the very fact that I existed?"

"It is a common failing of childhood to think that if one makes a hero out of a demon the demon will be satisfied."

"It seemed that hell could appear day or night, at any time, at any place, simply in response to one's thoughts or wishes. It seemed that we could summon it at our pleasure and that instantly it would appear."

"It was certainly not consolation that Kashiwagi sought in beauty. .. What he loved was that for a short while after his breath had brought beauty into existence in the air, his own clubfeet and gloomy thinking remained there, more clearly and more vividly than before. The uselessness of beauty, the fact that beauty which had passed through his body left no mark there whatsoever, that it changed absolutely nothing- it was this that Kashiwagi loved."

"It is not surprising that stuttering erects a wall between me and the outside world. The hardest thing to give me the first sound of the word, it was kind of a key to that door that separates me from other people, and this key is forever stuck in the keyhole. All other fluent in his speech, the door connecting their inner world with the outer world, has always been wide open, free wind and walked back and forth, without encountering obstacles. To me this once and for all has been ordered, I got the key, pitted with rust. I was all alone, the Golden Temple, the absolute and comprehensive, enveloped me on all sides. Someone who belonged - I Temple, or he to me? Or we have achieved the rare balance and Temple became me, and I became a temple?"

"It is a rather risky matter to discuss a happiness that has no need of words."

"It was the sea that made me begin thinking secretly about love more than anything else; you know, a love worth dying for, or a love that consumes you. To a man locked up in a steel ship all the time, the sea is too much like a woman. Things like her lulls and storms, or her caprice, or the beauty of her breast reflecting the setting sun, are all obvious. More than that, you?re in a ship that mounts the sea and rides her and yet is constantly denied her. It?s the old saw about miles and miles of lovely water and you can?t quench your thirst. Nature surrounds a sailor with all these elements so like a woman and yet he is kept as far as a man can be from her warm, living body. That?s where the problem begins, right there?I?m sure of it."

"It?s odd how one?s memories of youth turn out so bleak. Why does the business of growing up?one?s recollections of growth itself?have to be so tragic? I still haven?t found the answer. I doubt if anybody has. When I finally reach that stage at which the placid wisdom of old age...occasionally descends on a person, then I too may suddenly discover that I understand. But I doubt whether, by that time, understanding will have much point."

"I've known supreme happiness, and I'm not greedy enough to want what I have to go on forever. Every dream ends. Wouldn't it be foolish, knowing that nothing lasts forever, to insist that one has a right to do something that does? ? but, if eternity existed, it would be this moment."

"I've never done much, but I've lived my whole life thinking of myself as the only real man. And if I'm right, then a limpid, lonely horn is going to trumpet through the dawn some day, and a turgid cloud laced with light will sweep down, and the poignant voice of glory will call for me from the distance ? and I'll have to jump out of bed and set out alone. That's why I've never married. I've waited, and waited, and here I am past thirty."

"Just now I had a dream. I'll see you again. I know it. Beneath the falls."

"Just let matters slide. How much better to accept each sweet drop of the honey that was Time, than to stoop to the vulgarity latent in every decision. However grave the matter at hand might be, if one neglected it for long enough, the act of neglect itself would begin to affect the situation, and someone else would emerge as an ally. Such was Count Ayakura's version of political theory."

"Just then appeared before me Golden Temple. Sleek, dark, filled with great dignity construction. Ancient its gilding already threadbare, reminiscent of the former splendor. Yes, Golden Temple - both close and distant, native and foreign, but always transparent and untouchable, always out there, but here on unattainable distance of reason."

"Kazu, now that she thought of it, realized that for all her headstrong temperament, she had never loved a man younger than herself. A young man has such a surplus of spiritual and physical gifts that he is likely to be cocksure of himself, particularly when dealing with an older woman, and there is no telling how swelled up with self-importance he may become. Besides, Kazu felt a physical repugnance for youth. A woman is more keenly aware than a man of the shocking disharmony between a young man's spiritual and physical qualities, and Kazu had never met a young man who wore his youth well. She was moreover repelled by the sleekness of a young man's skin."

"Japanese people today think of money, just money: Where is our national spirit today? The Jieitai must be the soul of Japan. ? The nation has no spiritual foundation. That is why you don?t agree with me. You will just be American mercenaries. There you are in your tiny world. You do nothing for Japan. ? I salute the Emperor. Long live the emperor!"

"Kiyo, what would you do if all of a sudden I weren't here anymore?' Satoko asked, her words coming in a rushed whisper. This was a long-standing trick of Satoko's for disconcerting people. Perhaps she achieved her effects without conscious effort, but she never allowed the slightest hint of mischief into her tone to put her victim at ease. Her voice would be heavy with pathos at such times, as though confiding the gravest of secrets. Although he should have been inured to this by now, Kiyoaki could not help asking: 'Not here anymore? Why?' Despite all his efforts to indicate a studied disinterest, Kiyoaki's reply betrayed his uneasiness. It was what Satoko wanted. 'I can't tell you why,' she answered, deftly dropping ink into the clear waters of Kiyoaki's heart..."

"Keep this secret thought was pleasant and at the same time sad. When they felt they could fly together, driven by the power of love, anywhere in the sky to the far opposite side, the idea of owning wings made ??it so real their fantasies. unfortunately both, believing that only the other had wings, proved an immense despair because they were sure that one day or the beloved would fly away on its own."

"Life strove mightily to exile orthodoxy, hospitalize heresy, and trap humanity into stupidity. It was an accumulation of used bandages soiled with layers of blood and pus. Life was the daily changing of the bandages of the heart that made the incurably sick, young and old alike, cry out in pain."

"Let the darkness that is in my heart become equal to the darkness of the night that surrounds those innumerable lights!"

"Many people will express disbelief that such a process could already be at work in a person's earliest years. But that, beyond doubt, is what happened to me personally, thereby laying the ground for two contradictory tendencies within myself. One was the determination to press ahead loyally with the corrosive function of words, and to make that my life's work. The other was the desire to encounter reality in some field where words should play no part at all."

"Living is merely the chaos of existence."

"My "act" has ended by becoming an integral part of my nature, I told myself. It's no longer an act. My knowledge that I am masquerading as a normal person has even corroded whatever of normality I originally possessed, ending by making me tell myself over and over again that it too was nothing but a pretense of normality. To say it another way, I'm becoming the sort of person who can't believe in anything except the counterfeit."

"Mine was the unbearable jealousy a cultured pearl must feel toward a genuine one. Or can there be such a thing in this world as a man who is jealous of the woman who loves him, precisely because of her love?"

"Men had been living a proud life, having felt no need for the spirit-until Christianity invented it."

"More than anything else, Kiyoaki thought, more than Princess Chan, the emerald ring, their friends, their school, perhaps what the princes had needed had been sunshine. It seemed that summer had the power to heal all frustrations, soothe every grief, restores their lost happiness."