To be upright and to have an imagination: that is enough to be a very good young man. Kenzaburo Oe More Quotes by Kenzaburo Oe More Quotes From Kenzaburo Oe It is the second job of literature to create myth. But its first job is to destroy it. Kenzaburo Oe literaturejobsfirsts It takes a person of great care and insight to watch for any abnormality in the green grass even while it grows abundantly and healthily. Kenzaburo Oe greencarewatches There's no better reading experience than going to the place where a text was written. Kenzaburo Oe reading-experiencewrittenreading The ideal teacher student relationship exists when the student is better than the teacher. Kenzaburo Oe teacher-studentstudentsteacher I think, we can only write very personal matters through our experience. When I named my first novel about my son "A Personal Matter," I believe I knew the most important thing: there is not any personal matter; we must find the link between ourselves, our "personal matter," and society. Kenzaburo Oe writingbelieveson Understanding comes hard to persons of high rank who are accustomed to phony lifestyles that involve no daily work. Kenzaburo Oe phonylifestyleunderstanding The dead can survive as part of the lives of those that still live. Kenzaburo Oe stills I am one of the writers who wish to create serious works of literature which dissociate themselves from those novels which are mere reflections of the vast consumer cultures of Tokyo and the subcultures of the world at large. Kenzaburo Oe reflectionwishculture The writer's job is the job of a clown …the clown who also talks about sorrow. Kenzaburo Oe clownsorrowjobs If any suffering was fruitless it was the agony of a hangover; what he suffered now could not expiate suffering of any other kind. Kenzaburo Oe hangoveragonysuffering There could be joy in destruction, too, couldn't there? Isn't Jesus Christ's Second Coming supposed to occur only after a lot of unmitigated destruction? But again, human history is fraught with tragedies in which man spared no effort to destroy with millenarian joy, only to learn that no messiah appeared afterwards. Kenzaburo Oe effortmenjesus The Japanese chose the principle of eternal peace as the basis of morality for our rebirth after the War. Kenzaburo Oe moralityprincipleswar The destination of the soul: this is what I, led on by Nils Holgersson, came to seek in the literature of Western Europe. I fervently hope that my pursuit, as a Japanese, of literature and culture will, in some small measure, repay Western Europe for the light it has shed upon the human condition. Kenzaburo Oe lightsouleurope I think I am doing my works to link myself, my family, with society — with the cosmos. To link me with my family to the cosmos, that is easy, because all literature has some mystic tendency. So when we write about our family, we can link ourselves to the cosmos. Kenzaburo Oe cosmoswritingthinking I have survived by representing these sufferings of mine in the form of the novel. Kenzaburo Oe novelformsuffering I don't think young people need to see the face of the deceased. Kenzaburo Oe peopleneedsthinking The ambiguous orientation of Japan drove the country into the position of an invader in Asia. Kenzaburo Oe asiajapancountry Fundamentally a good author has his or her own sense of style. There is a natural, deep voice, and that voice is present from the first draft of a manuscript. When he or she elaborates on the initial manuscript, it continues to strengthen and simplify that natural, deep voice. Kenzaburo Oe stylevoicefirsts My observation is that after one hundred and twenty years of modernisation since the opening of the country, present-day Japan is split between two opposite poles of ambiguity. Kenzaburo Oe japancountryyears The people of Hiroshima went to work at once to restore human society in the aftermath of the great atomic flood. They were concerned to salvage their own lives, but in the process they also salvaged the souls of the people who have brought the atomic bomb. Kenzaburo Oe aftermathsoulpeople
