Osamu Dazai Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Labeled a delinquent. That's the only kind of label I want to be crucified under.

  Osamu Dazai

  Labels, Want, Kind

  34 Copy quote

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

  Osamu Dazai

  Morality, Victim, Periods

  Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.173, New Directions Publishing

  77 Copy quote

• 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.

  Osamu Dazai

  People, Impossible, Should

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.26, New Directions Publishing

  64 Copy quote

• People talk of “social outcasts.” The words apparently denote the miserable losers of the world, the vicious ones, but I feel as though I have been a “social outcast” from the moment I was born. If ever I meet someone society has designated as an outcast, I invariably feel affection for him, an emotion which carries me away in melting tenderness.

  Osamu Dazai

  People, Melting, World

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.67, New Directions Publishing

  25 Copy quote

• Scoundrels [...] simply don't die. The ones who die are always the gentle, sweet, and beautiful people. [...] Scoundrels live a long time. The beautiful die young.

  Osamu Dazai

  Beautiful, Sweet, Long

  Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.10, New Directions Publishing

  30 Copy quote

• I have always found the female of the human species many times more difficult to understand than the male.

  Osamu Dazai

  Women, Males, Female

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.48, New Directions Publishing

  18 Copy quote

• Any man who criticizes my suicide and passes judgment on me with an expression of superiority, declaring (without offering the least help) that I should have gone on living my full complement of days, is assuredly a prodigy among men quite capable of tranquilly urging the Emperor to open a fruit shop.

  Osamu Dazai

  Suicide, Men, Offering

  Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.159, New Directions Publishing

  24 Copy quote

• Then what's a synonym for woman?" "Entrails." "You're not very poetic, are you? Well, then, what's the antonym for entrails?" "Milk.

  Osamu Dazai

  Milk, Poetic, Wells

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.143, New Directions Publishing

  20 Copy quote

• At times everything grows misty and dark before my eyes, and I feel that the strength of my whole body is oozing away through my finger tips.

  Osamu Dazai

  Eye, Dark, Body

  Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.53, New Directions Publishing

  23 Copy quote

• What frightened me was the logic of the world; in it lay the foretaste of something incalculably powerful. Its mechanism was incomprehensible, and I could not possibly remain closeted in that windowless, bone-chilling room. Though outside lay the sea of irrationality, it was far more agreeable to swim in its waters until presently I drowned.

  Osamu Dazai

  Powerful, Sea, Water

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.67, New Directions Publishing

  40 Copy quote

• 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.

  Osamu Dazai

  Mean, Simple, Simplicity

  28 Copy quote

• 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.

  Osamu Dazai

  Struggle, Fighting, People

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.157, New Directions Publishing

  39 Copy quote

• I drink out of desperation. Life is too dreary to endure. The misery, loneliness, crampedness - they're heartbreaking.[...] What feelings do you suppose a man has when he realizes that he will never know happiness or glory as long as he lives? Hard work. All that amounts to is food for the wild beasts of hunger.

  Osamu Dazai

  Loneliness, Hard Work, Men

  Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.150, New Directions Publishing

  59 Copy quote

• 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?

  Osamu Dazai

  Two, May, Realizing

  "No Longer Human". Book by Osamu Dazai, 1948.

  28 Copy quote

• 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.

  Osamu Dazai

  Ocean, World, Gains

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.125, New Directions Publishing

  18 Copy quote

• To fall for," "to be fallen for"--I feel in these words something unspeakably vulgar, farcical, and at the same time extraordinarily complacent. Once these expressions put in an appearance, no matter how solemn the place, the silent cathedrals of melancholy crumble, leaving nothing but an impression of fatuousness. It is curious, but the cathedrals of melancholy are not necessarily demolished if one can replace the vulgar "What a messy business it is to be fallen for" by the more literary "What uneasiness lies in being loved.

  Osamu Dazai

  Love, Lying, Fall

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.47, New Directions Publishing

  72 Copy quote

• To be a friend of the weak-that is the artist's point of departure as well as his ultimate goal.

  Osamu Dazai

  Artist, Goal, Departure

  29 Copy quote

• 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.

  Osamu Dazai

  Reality, Ninety Nine, Expectations

  21 Copy quote

• 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.

  Osamu Dazai

  Expression, Cases, Fallen

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.49, New Directions Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• It would seem that the more irresponsible and crafty one is, the more likely one is to have a talent for storytelling.

  Osamu Dazai

  Talent, Storytelling, Irresponsible

  Osamu Dazai (2013). “Blue Bamboo: Tales by Dazai Osamu”, p.169, BookBaby

  18 Copy quote

• Mother, recently I have discovered the one way in which human beings differ completely from other animals. Man has, I know, language, knowledge, principles, and social order, but don't all the other animals have them too, granted the difference of degree? Perhaps the animals even have religions. Man boasts of being the lord of all creation, but it would seem as if essentially he does not differ in the least from other animals. But, Mother, there was one way I thought of. Perhaps you won't understand. It's a faculty absolutely unique to man - having secrets. Can you see what I mean?

  Osamu Dazai

  Mother, Mean, Men

  45 Copy quote

• Not long ago I learned from a certain person in considerable detail about the worthlessness of your character. All the same, it is you who have given me strength, you who have put the rainbow of revolution in my breast. It is you who have given an object to my life.

  Osamu Dazai

  Character, Long Ago, Rainbow

  Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.174, New Directions Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• I am convinced that those people whom the world considers good and respects are all liars and fakes. I do not trust the world. My only ally is the tagged dissolute. The tagged dissolute. That is the only cross on which I wish to be crucified. Though ten thousand people criticize me, I can throw in their teeth my challenge: Are you not all the more dangerous for being without tags?

  Osamu Dazai

  Liars, People, Fake

  "The Setting Sun".

  15 Copy quote

• And I was incapable of living all by myself in those lodgings where I didn't know a soul. It terrified me to sit by myself quietly in my room. I felt frightened, as if I might be set upon or struck by someone at any moment.

  Osamu Dazai

  Soul, Might, Rooms

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.72, New Directions Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• I have often felt that I would find it more complicated, troublesome and unpleasant to ascertain the feelings by which a woman lives than to plumb the innermost thoughts of an earthworm.

  Osamu Dazai

  Women, Feelings, Complicated

  Phyllis I. Lyons, Osamu Dazai (1975). “The Osamu saga: the autobiographical fiction of Dazai Osamu”

  16 Copy quote

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