Top 39 Ryunosuke Akutagawa Quotes
#1. This passion for pictures gave him a whole new way of looking at the world. He began to pay constant attention to the curve of a branch or the swell of a woman's cheek.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#2. 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.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#3. I have heard unsavory rumors about you and the umbrella-maker's daughter
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#4. No matter how accomplished one might be in any branch of learning or art, one would have to be condemned to hell, if on where not endowed with th five cardinal virtues of Confucius-benevolence, justice, courtesy, wisdom and fidelity
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#5. 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.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#6. Do I still love this woman? he asked himself. He was in the habit of observing himself so closely that the answer came as a surprise to him: I do.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#7. O-suzu left whatever work she was doing at her sewing machine and dragged Takeo back to O-yoshi and her son.
How dare you behave so selfishly! Now tell O-yoshi-san that you are sorry. Get down on the mats and make a proper bow!
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#8. 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?
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#9. E understood far more deeply than anyone else the loneliness that lurked beneath his jaunty mask.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#11. He was said to have survived starvation by eating human flesh, after which he had the strength to tear out the antlers of a living stag with his bare hands.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#15. Great robber though he was, Kandata could only trash about like a dying frog as he choked on the blood of the pond.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#16. The cable was still sending sharp sparks into the air. He could think of nothing in life that he especially desired, but those purple sparks
those wildly-blooming flowers of fire
he would trade his life for the chance to hold them in his hands."
-from "The Life of a Stupid Man
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#17. He wanted to live life so intensely that he could die at any moment without regrets.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#18. Still more horrible was the color of the flames that licked the latticed cabin vents before shooting skyward, as though - might I say? - the sun itself had crashed to earth, spewing its heavenly fire in all directions.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#19. I may wear the skin of an urbane sophisticate, but in this manuscript I invite you to strip it off and laugh at my stupidity.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#20. The pale whiteness of her upturned face as she choked on the smoke; the tangled length of her hair as she tried to shake the flames from it; the beauty of her cherry-blossom robe as it burst into flame: it was all so cruel, so terrible!
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#22. Directly beneath the Lotus Pond of Paradise lay the lower depths of Hell, and as He peered through the crystalline waters, He could see the River of Three Crossings and the Mountain of Needles as clearly as if He were viewing pictures in a peep-box.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#23. Yes
or rather, it's not so much that I want to die as that I'm tired of living.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#24. I could wish for nothing more than to die for a childish dream in which I truly believed.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#25. While still a student, Napoleon had written on the last page of his geography book: "St. Helena. Small island." This may have been what we call a coincidence, but the thought must certainly have aroused terror in him in his last days.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#26. As you can imagine, those who had fallen this far had been so worn down by their tortures in the seven other hells that they no longer had the strength to cry out.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#27. 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.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#28. Life is not worth a single line of Baudelaire."
-from "The Life of a Stupid Man
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#30. I may be a lunatic, but then, wasn't my lunacy caused by a monster that lurks at the bottom of every human mind? Those who call me a madman and spurn me may become lunatics tomorrow. They harbor the same monster.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#31. 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.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#32. 17. Butterfly
A 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.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#33. It is unfortunate for the gods that, unlike us, they cannot commit suicide.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#34. This is all for the sake of the House, he told himself, but behind his resolve he sensed, indistinctly, a certain effort at self-vindication, and the awareness hovered there like a barely perceptible halo around the moon.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#35. I could have sworn that the man's eyes were no longer watching his daughter dying in agony, that instead the gorgeous colors of flames and the sight of a woman suffering in them were giving him joy beyond measure.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#37. What is the life of a human being - a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#38. I have no conscience at all
least of all an artistic conscience. All I have is nerves.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
#39. People used to say that on moonless nights Her Ladyship's broad-skirted scarlet trousers would glide eerily along the outdoor corridor, never touching the floor.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
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