Yukio Mishima

"All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence. For forty-five years I struggled to resolve this dilemma by writing plays and novels. The more I wrote, the more I realized mere words were not enough. So I found another form of expression."

"As he saw it, there was only one choice — to be strong and upright, or to commit suicide."

"Human beings — they go on being born and dying, dying and being born. Its kind of boring, isnt it?"

"I received an impassioned letter from Sonoko. There was no doubt that she was truly in love. I felt jealous. Mine was the unbearable jealousy a cultured pearl must feel toward a genuine one. Or can there be such a thing in this world as a man who is jealous of the woman who loves him, precisely because of her love?"

"There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess."

"I had no taste for defeat — much less victory — without a fight."

"In its essence, any art that relies on words makes use of their ability to eat away — of their corrosive function — just as etching depends on the corrosive power of nitric acid."

"Let us remember that the central reality must be sought in the writers work: it is what the writer chose to write, or was compelled to write, that finally matters. And certainly Mishimas carefully premeditated death is part of his work."

"Actually the action called a kiss represented nothing more for me than some place where my spirit could seek shelter."

"What transforms this world is — knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed. You may ask what good it does us. Lets put it this way — human beings possess the weapon of knowledge in order to make life bearable. For animals such things arent necessary. Animals dont need knowledge or anything of the sort to make life bearable. But human beings do need something, and with knowledge they can make the very intolerableness of life a weapon, though at the same time that intolerableness is not reduced in the slightest. Thats all there is to it."

"I want to make a poem of my life."

"Just let matters slide. How much better to accept each sweet drop of the honey that was Time, than to stoop to the vulgarity latent in every decision. However grave the matter at hand might be, if one neglected it for long enough, the act of neglect itself would begin to affect the situation, and someone else would emerge as an ally. Such was Count Ayakuras version of political theory."