Home > Author > Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
21 " No, nothing in this world is as oppressive and debilitating as blood ties. Any other relationship – be it friend, lover, wife; be it obligatory or constraining or difficult – is something one has consciously entered into at some point. Only one's ties with parents and siblings are formed at birth and are unbreakable. "
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , Three Japanese Short Stories
22 " Putların yıkılmasında herkes hemfikirdir; fakat kimse heykelinin dikilmesine itiraz etmez. Ne var ki, o mermer kaidelerin üstünde ancak Tanrı'nın ilahi ayrıcalığına mazhar olmuş kulları, rahat ve kaygısız oturabilirler... Bunlar da aptallar, şerefsizler ve kahramanlardır. "
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , Kappa
23 " For her I would gladly ferry across the Sumida on the coldest winter day to buy her those sakura-mochi sweets from old Edo that she loved so much. But medicine? That is another matter. Not even on the warmest day would I want to go buy her medicine. "
24 " A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life. "
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , Rashomon and Other Stories
25 " I could wish for nothing more than to die for a childish dream in which I truly believed. "
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , Mandarins: Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
26 " I don't have the strength to keep writing this. To go on living with this feeling is painful beyond description. Isn't there someone kind enough to strangle me in my sleep? "
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories
27 " He wanted to live life so intensely that he could die at any moment without regrets. "
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , The Life of a Stupid Man
28 " What is the life of a human being—a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad. "
29 " ..he understood far more deeply than anyone else the loneliness that lurked beneath his jaunty mask. "
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
30 " When I kill a man, I do it with my sword, but people like you don't use swords. You gentlemen kill with your power, with your money, and sometimes just with your words: you tell people you're doing them a favor. True, no blood flows, the man is still alive, but you've killed him all the same. I don't know whose sin is greater - yours or mine. "
31 " 17. ButterflyA butterfly fluttered its wings in a wind thick with the smell of seaweed. His dry lips felt the touch of the butterfly for the briefest instant, yet the wisp of wing dust still shone on his lips years later. "
32 " Life is not worth a single line of Baudelaire. "
33 " The human heart harbors two conflicting sentiments. Everyone of course sympathizes with people who suffer misfortunes. Yet when those people manage to overcome their misfortunes, we feel a certain disappointment. We may even feel (to overstate the case somewhat) a desire to plunge them back into those misfortunes. And before we know it, we come (if only passively) to harbor some degree of hostility toward them. "
34 " I have heard unsavory rumors about you and the umbrella-maker's daughter "
35 " Life is more hellish than hell itself. "
36 " As he thought about his life, he felt both tears and mockery welling up inside him. All that lay before him was madness or suicide. He walked down the darkening street alone, determined now to wait for the destiny that would come to annihilate him. "
37 " He disliked his own lies as much as his parents', but still he continued to lie -- boldly and cunningly. He did this primarily out of need, but also for the pathological pleasure of killing a god. "
38 " It is important-even necessary-for us to become acutely aware of the fact that we can't trust ourselves. The only ones you can trust to some extent are people who really know that. We had better get this straight. "
39 " A shimmering of heat—Outside the graveAlone I dwell. "
40 " He felt so lost, he said later, that the familiar studio felt like a haunted valley deep in the mountains, with the smell of rotting leaves, the spray of a waterfall, the sour fumes of fruit stashed away by a monkey; even the dim glow of the master's oil lamp on its tripod looked to him like misty moonlight in the hills. "
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , Hell Screen