Quotes from Yukio Mishima

Tu sei come un torrente chiaro che scorre sulle rocce, io sono come il suo letto levigato, eroso dalla corrente. Solo se il torrente si asciuga il letto viene risparmiato ma, nonostante tutto, quest'ultimo non vuole inaridirsi e desidera ardentemente che le acque non cessino di scorrere e di consumarlo...

In short, spirit must be viewed as the special characteristic that differentiates man from the animals. It is the only essential difference.

Haruie guardava gli astri spuntare a uno a uno e, perso nell'incanto della contemplazione dimenticò la tristezza, dimenticò di essere un fuggitivo. Le stelle dopo un po' cominciarono a luccicare debolmente dentro di lui e ricamarono nel suo cuore un tessuto scintillante.

There was no other sound. The garden was empty. He had come, thought Honda, to a place with no memories, nothing. The noontide sun of summer flowered over the still garden.

The very thing that makes a star spectacular is the same thing that strikes him from the world at large and makes him an outsider.

Pensate che l'amore sia una colpa?" le disse. Lei non rispose, e lui le chiese ancora: "Oppure non vi ponete questo interrogativo, perché non temete il castigo del Buddha?" [...] "Non c'è pericolo che diventi un incendio?" disse la donna con un'espressione scherzosa negli occhi vivaci. "Certo che diventerà un incendio, ogni vero amore lo diventa", rispose con audacia l'impulsivo Haruie.

Dreaming was for the moviegoers, fingering their pulpy paper tickets

Tener segreto questo pensiero fu piacevole e allo stesso tempo triste. Quando sentivano di riuscire a volare insieme, spinti dalla potenza dell'amore, dovunque in quel cielo fino alla lontana riva opposta, l'idea di possedere le ali rendeva così reale le loro fantasie. purtroppo entrambi, credendo che solo l'altro avesse le ali, provarono un immenso sconforto perchè erano sicuri che un giorno o l'amato sarebbe volato via da solo".

A little thought will make this clear. The sense of existence of a man with a massive physique must, in itself, be of the kind that embraces the whole world; for that man, considered as a object of knowledge, every-thing outside himself (including me) must necessarily be transferred onto the objective outside world experienced by his senses

Why is it that she always has such bad luck?" "Sometimes jiltings run in series - like miscarriages. Her nervous system has gotten in the habit of it, I suppose, and when she falls in love it has to end in miscarriage.

L]oss is the necessary source of a new manifestation. Some night I might see my emerald ring appear as a green star somewhere in the sky.

Quando tentano di esprimere la verità, le parole balbettano sempre in questo modo. Mi pare quasi di vederle annaspare. Non per vergogna, né per paura, ma perché è inevitabile che la nuda verità provochi un simile balbettare, espressione di una sua certa rozza natura.

It was all right that I should try to justify my honest feelings by all sorts of rationalizations. But sometimes the multifarious motives that my brain spun out would force feelings on me that came as a shock even to myself; and those feelings were not originally my own. Only in my hatred was there something authentic. For I myself was a person who should be moved with hate.

It was that strange moment, poised on the edge of evening, when lights are still unnecessary, when even in the midst of a convivial gathering, one may be caught by a vague intimation of precariousness.

In a big city, there are always fires somewhere. And there are always crimes somewhere, too. God, despairing of burning away crime with fire , perhaps distributed crime and fire in equal quantities. Thus crime is never consumed by fire, while innocence can be burned up. That's why insurance companies prosper. My guilt, however--in order that it might become a pure thing immune to fire, must not my innocence first pass through the fire?

I had long since cut ties with that world, like a yakuza stepping out of the game and washing his hands of it once and for all. I had no more use for dreams. Dreaming was for the moviegoers, fingering their pulpy paper tickets. Not for me.

Damn, even that trash rolls better than me . . .

cultivation of his anxiety.

Oamenii din "?inutul Rodiei" sunt foarte înÈ›elepÈ›i; È™tiu c? exist? doar dou? roluri pentru fiinÈ›ele din aceast? lume: cei care È›in minte È™i cei care sunt È›inuÈ›i minte.

One letter that still remains very vivid in my mind was written in pencil on a piece of rice-paper in a youthful, almost careless scribble. If my memory is not mistaken, it was to the following effect, and broke off abruptly in just this fashion: "At the moment I am full of life, my whole body overflowing with youth and strength. It seems impossible that I shall be dead in three hours' time. And yet...

Ella no puede penetrar los profundos sentimientos de una canción como ésta; ni ver a través del muro de sombras de mi naturaleza de hombre el anhelo que a veces me hace llorar. Muy bien: entonces, en lo que a mí concierne, no es sino un cuerpo más.

Böse Absichten reisen nicht so weit wie gute. (S.37, Leuchtturmwärter)

Frauen sind wirklich kluge Wesen, was? (S.89, Jukichi)

Los labios y los ojos de Sonoko resplandecían. Su belleza me deprimía y despertaba en mi una sensación de impotencia. Esa misma sensación es la causa de que Sonoko me pareciera aún más efímera.