Yukio Mishima Quotes - Page 3

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

  Yukio Mishima

  Hero, Thinking, Childhood

  Yukio Mishima (1958). “Confessions of a Mask”, p.107, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent whereby we may perceive Truth.

  Yukio Mishima

  Art, Truth, Flower

  Yukio Mishima (1966). “Death in Midsummer, and Other Stories”, p.61, New Directions Publishing

  64 Copy quote

• Actually the action called a kiss represented nothing more for me than some place where my spirit could seek shelter.

  Yukio Mishima

  Kissing, Shelter, Spirit

  Yukio Mishima (1958). “Confessions of a Mask”, p.115, New Directions Publishing

  8 Copy quote

• What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity.

  Yukio Mishima

  Suicide, Sky, Stupidity

  Yukio Mishima (1958). “Confessions of a Mask”, New Directions Publishing

  12 Copy quote

• The period of childhood is a stage on which time and space become entangled.

  Yukio Mishima

  Space, Childhood, Stage

  Yukio Mishima (1958). “Confessions of a Mask”, p.15, New Directions Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• Again and again, the cicada's untiring cry pierced the sultry summer air like a needle at work on thick cotton cloth.

  Yukio Mishima

  Summer, Air, Cotton

  Yukio Mishima (1990). “Runaway Horses”, Vintage

  27 Copy quote

• At no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy with preparations for it. After that, there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process through which we lose our ownership of it.

  Yukio Mishima

  Journey, Discipline, Preparation

  Yukio Mishima (1958). “Confessions of a Mask”, p.118, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

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

  Yukio Mishima

  Writing, Lines, One Line

  7 Copy quote

• When people concentrate on the idea of beauty, they are, without realizing it, confronted with the darkest thoughts that exist in this world. That, I suppose, is how human beings are made.

  Yukio Mishima

  Ideas, People, World

  Yukio Mishima (2011). “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion”, p.52, Tuttle Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• Even when we're with someone we love, we're foolish enough to think of her body and soul as being separate. To stand before the person we love is not the same as loving her true self, for we are only apt to regard her physical beauty as the indispensable mode of her existence. When time and space intervene, it is possible to be deceived by both, but on the other hand, it is equally possible to draw twice as close to her real self.

  Yukio Mishima

  Real, Love Is, Thinking

  16 Copy quote

• We tend to suffer from the illusion that we are capable of dying for a belief or theory. What Hagakure is insisting is that even in merciless death, a futile death that knows neither flower nor fruit has dignity as the death of a human being. 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.

  Yukio Mishima

  Flower, Suffering, Dying

  "Yukio Mishima on Hagakure: The Samurai Ethic and Modern Japan". Book by Yukio Mishima and Jocho Yamamoto translated by Kathryn Sparling, 1977.

  9 Copy quote

• However, as words become particularized, and as men begin - in however small a way - to use them in personal, arbitrary ways, so their transformation into art begins. It was words of this kind that, descending on me like a swarm of winged insects, seized on my individuality and sought to shut me up within it. Nevertheless, despite the enemy's depredations upon my person, I turned their universality - at once a weapon and a weakness - back on them, and to some extent succeeded in using words to universalize to my own individuality.

  Yukio Mishima

  Art, Men, Individuality

  27 Copy quote

• Glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff.

  Yukio Mishima

  Stuff, Bitter, Glory

  9 Copy quote

• The past does not only draw us back to the past. There are certain memories of the past that have strong steel springs and, when we who live in the present touch them, they are suddenly stretched taut and then they propel us into the future.

  Yukio Mishima

  Strong, Memories, Spring

  Yukio Mishima (1959). “The temple of the golden pavilion”, Alfred A. Knopf

  10 Copy quote

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

  Yukio Mishima

  Men, Needs, Proud

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Yukio Mishima

  Revenge, Stupid, Fate

  "Confessions of a Mask". Book by Yukio Mishima, 1949.

  12 Copy quote

• We are not wounded so deeply when betrayed by the things we hope for as when betrayed by things we try our best to despise. In such betrayal comes the dagger in the back.

  Yukio Mishima

  Betrayal, Trying, Betrayed

  4 Copy quote

• A father is a reality-concealing machine, a machine for dishing up lies to kids, and that isn't even the worst of it: secretly he believes that he represents reality.

  Yukio Mishima

  Father, Lying, Believe

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Yukio Mishima

  Men, White, Yesterday

  Yukio Mishima (2010). “Runaway Horses”, p.344, Random House

  7 Copy quote

• His emotion evident in the glitter of his eyes.

  Yukio Mishima

  Eye, Glitter, Emotion

  Yukio Mishima (1990). “Runaway Horses”, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• Other people must be destroyed. In order that I might truly face the sun, the world itself must be destroyed.

  Yukio Mishima

  Order, People, World

  Yukio Mishima (2011). “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion”, p.26, Tuttle Publishing

  12 Copy quote

• There isn't any fear in existence itself, or any uncertainty, but living creates it.

  Yukio Mishima

  Existence, Uncertainty

  Yukio Mishima (2010). “The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea”, p.51, Random House

  10 Copy quote

• The only people in this world I really trust are my fans - even if they do forget you so fast.

  Yukio Mishima

  People, Fans, World

  4 Copy quote

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

  Yukio Mishima

  Facts, Sin, Remorse

  Yukio Mishima (1958). “Confessions of a Mask”, p.144, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• Amid the moon and the stars, amid the clouds of the night, amid the hills which bordered on the sky with their magnificent silhouette of pointed cedars, amid the speckled patches of the moon, amid the temple buildings that emerged sparkling white out of the surrounding darkness - amid all this, I was intoxicated by the pellucid beauty of Uiko's treachery.

  Yukio Mishima

  Stars, Moon, Night

  Yukio Mishima (2011). “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion”, p.29, Tuttle Publishing

  34 Copy quote

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