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Osamu Dazai

Osamu Dazai Quotes

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“Speech blossoms from anxiety… words were fermented from the uncertainty of existence, like poisonous red mushrooms sprout from the rotting earth. It’s true we have words of joy and pleasure, but aren’t those the most unnatural and contrived of them all? Apparently, human beings experience anxiety even in the midst of joy. But in a place without anxiety, there’s no need for such ignoble contrivances.”

“(They were happy, the two of them. I'd been a fool to come between them. I might destroy them both if I were not careful. A humble happiness. A good mother and a child. God, I thought, if you listen to the prayer of people like myself, grant me happiness once, only once in my whole lifetime will be enough! Hear my prayer!) I felt like getting down on my knees to pray then and there. I shut the door softly, went to the Ginza, and did not return to the apartment.”

“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.”