Sōseki Natsume

“There was a large crowd around us, and every face in it looked happy. We had little opportunity to talk until we reached the woods, where there were no flowers and no people.”

“Daisuke was of course equipped with conversation that, even if they went further, would allow him to retreat as if nothing had happened. He had always wondered at the conversations recorded in Western novels, for to him they were too bald, too self indulgent, and moreover, too unsubtly rich. However they read in the original, he thought they reflected a taste that could not be translated into Japanese. Therefore, he had not the slightest intention of using imported phrases to develop his relationship with Michiyo. Between the two of them at least, ordinary words sufficed perfectly well. But the danger was of slipping from point A to point B without realizing it. Daisuke managed to stand his ground only by a hair's breadth. When he left, Michiyo saw him to the entranceway and said, "Do come again, please? It's so lonely.”

“He was grand in his convictions. He would stride forward to meet his own destruction.”

“People may make fun of me because I’m wearing something odd, but it’s still good to be alive.”

“It seems to me that you might create any sort of character in a novel and there would be at least one person in the world just like him. We humans are simply incapable of imagining non-human actions or behavior. It's the writer's fault if we don't believe in his characters as human beings.”

“[T]he very color of the air in the place I was born was different, the smell of the earth was special, redolent with memories of my parents.”

“It is painfully easy to define human beings. They are beings who, for no good reason at all, create their own unnecessary suffering.”

“As I see it, you’re always unsteady on your legs. You can’t find your courage. You’ll go to any length to avoid what displeases you, and you gallop after whatever you want. And why is that? There is no why; it’s because you’re free to. You enjoy the luxury of picking and choosing because you have the latitude. You’re never pushed into a tight corner as I am, so it never occurs to you to thumb your nose at the world.”

“It's like the frog that tried to outdo the cow...see, the consequences are reflected in each of us as individuals. A people so oppressed by the West have no mental leisure, they can't do anything worthwhile. They get an education that's stripped to the bare bone, and they're driven with their noses to the grindstone until they're dizzy -- that's why they all end up with nervous breakdowns. Try talking to them -- they're usually stupid. They haven't thought about a thing beyond themselves, that day, that very instant. They're too exhausted to think about anything else; it's not their fault. Unfortunately, exhaustion of the spirit and deterioration of the body come hand-in-hand. And that's not all. The decline of morality has set in too. Look where you will in this country, you won't find one square inch of brightness. It's all pitch black. So what difference would it make...”

“Words are not meant to stir the air only: they are capable of moving greater things.”

“I thought of the new stone, of my new wife, and of the newly buried white bones beneath us, and I felt that fate had made sport of us all.”

“On the whole, all people are good, or at least they're normal. The frightening thing is that they can suddenly turn bad when it comes to the crunch.”