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Osamu Dazai Quotes

1909–1948

Writers

Random Osamu Dazai quote

188 quotes

I drew with extremely excessively depressed emotions, deliberately penning each line, only to earn money for drink.

It would seem that the more irresponsible and crafty one is, the more likely one is to have a talent for storytelling.

If you’ve slept soundly at night the morning is exhilarating, I suppose.

Excessively passionate characters have a tendency to behave poorly.

“Then what's a synonym for woman?" "Entrails." "You're not very poetic, are you? Well, then, what's the antonym for entrails?" "Milk.”

I drink out of desperation. Life is too dreary to endure.

What a holy thing uncorrupted virginity is, I thought.

I'm going somewhere where there aren't any women.

Addiction is perhaps a sickness of the spirit.

I hope I meet lots of people with lovely eyes.

Such it is for those in the grips of misfortune: declarations of support and sympathy, rather than providing comfort, may merely increase the victim's pain.

Young people never say anything straight. You can tell they're being honest if they hide behind a laugh.

Human beings are like that, though. They’ll do the most unbelievably cruel things when you least expect it.

Logic, inevitably, is the love of logic. It is not the love for living human beings.

Glasses obstruct whatever emotions that might appear on your face—passion, grace, fury, weakness, innocence, sorrow.

The sly ability to steal someone else's experience and recreate it as if it were my own is the only real talent I possess.

Whenever I run up against what's called "instinct," I feel like I want to cry.

People depend on death to be complete. While alive, they are all incomplete.

Fuji goes well with the evening primrose.
(Alternate translation: Evening primroses really look very well in the landscape of Mt. Fuji.)

The only thing people like you can see is other people’s faults, and you’re oblivious to the horror in your own hearts. You people terrify me.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Osamu Dazai (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.