A Quiet Life
A source page for quotes linked to Kenzaburo Oe.
“After I got married, the first child born to us was mentally handicapped.”
“I have survived by representing these sufferings of mine in the form of the novel.”
“The ambiguous orientation of Japan drove the country into the position of an invader in Asia.”
“The way Japan had tried to build up a modern state modelled on the West was cataclysmic.”
“I don't think young people need to see the face of the deceased.”
“The ideal teacher student relationship exists when the student is better than the teacher.”
“It is the second job of literature to create myth. But its first job is to destroy it.”
“The dead can survive as part of the lives of those that still live.”
“There's no better reading experience than going to the place where a text was written.”
“To be upright and to have an imagination: that is enough to be a very good young man.”
“The writer's job is the job of a clown …the clown who also talks about sorrow.”