Osamu Dazai: Anything I would never want to lose is always lost. It is...

I am convinced that those people whom the world considers good and respects are all liars and fakes. I do not trust the world. My only ally is the tagged dissolute. The tagged dissolute. That is the only cross on which I wish to be crucified. Though ten thousand people criticize me, I can throw in their teeth my challenge: Are you not all the more dangerous for being without tags?

Osamu Dazai

fake liars people

It isn't that I dislike artists, but I can't stand anyone who puts on those ponderous airs of a man of character.

Osamu Dazai

artist character men

I have always found the female of the human species many times more difficult to understand than the male.

Osamu Dazai

males women female

What is society but an individual? [] The ocean is not society; it is individuals. This was how I managed to gain a modicum of freedom from my terror at the illusion of the ocean called the world.

Osamu Dazai

gains ocean world

Is it not true that no two human beings understand anything whatsoever about each other, that those who consider themselves bosom friends may be utterly mistaken about their fellow and, failing to realize this sad truth throughout a lifetime, weep when they read in the newspapers about his death?

Osamu Dazai

realizing may two

What did he mean by "society"? The plural of human beings?

Osamu Dazai

human-beings humans mean

As for love . . . no, having once written that word I can write nothing more.

Osamu Dazai

written i-can writing

Not long ago I learned from a certain person in considerable detail about the worthlessness of your character. All the same, it is you who have given me strength, you who have put the rainbow of revolution in my breast. It is you who have given an object to my life.

Osamu Dazai

long-ago rainbow character

I was afraid to board a streetcar because of the conductor; I was afraid to enter the Kabuki Theater for fear of the usherettes standing along the sides of the red-carpeted staircase at the main entrance; I was afraid to go into a restaurant because I was intimidated by the waiters furtively hovering behind me waiting for my plate to be emptied.

Osamu Dazai

awkward boards waiting

Having said that, I must now admit that I was still afraid of human beings, and before I could meet even the customers in the bar I had to fortify myself by gulping down a glass of liquor. The desire to see frightening things—that was what drew me every night to the bar where, like the child who squeezes his pet all the harder when he actually fears it a little, I proclaimed to the customers standing at the bar my drunken, bungling theories of art.

Osamu Dazai

night children art

I also have the impression that many women have been able, instinctively, to sniff out this loneliness of mine, which I confided to no one, and this in later years was to become one of the causes of my being taken advantage of.

Osamu Dazai

loneliness taken years

In my case such an expression as 'to be fallen for' or even 'to be loved' is not in the least appropriate; perhaps it describes the situation more accurately to say that I was 'looked after.

Osamu Dazai

fallen cases expression

I soon came to understand that drink, tobacco and prostitutes were all great means if dissipating (even for a few moments) my dread for human beings. I came even to feel that if I had to sell every last possession to obtain these means of escape, it would be well worth it.

Osamu Dazai

lasts would-be mean

One day, I went to a soba restaurant outside town, and while I was waiting for the zarusoba I opened an old graph magazine. There was a picture of an exhausted, lonely kneeling woman who wore a checked patterned yukata after the tradegy of a large earthquake. With the intensity of my chest ready to burn up, I fell in love with that poor woman. I also felt a horrifying desire for her. Maybe tragedy and desire are back to back to one another.

Osamu Dazai

lonely waiting earthquakes

The weak fear happiness itself.

Osamu Dazai

weak

And I was incapable of living all by myself in those lodgings where I didn't know a soul. It terrified me to sit by myself quietly in my room. I felt frightened, as if I might be set upon or struck by someone at any moment.

Osamu Dazai

soul might rooms

Evil expects evil from others.

Osamu Dazai

bungou-stray-dogs-2nd-season anime-quotes anime

Success is harder than failure for many things in this world.

Osamu Dazai

bungou-stray-dogs-2nd-season anime-quotes anime

Stop pitying yourself. Pity yourself, and life becomes an endless nightmare.

Osamu Dazai

bungou-stray-dogs-2nd-season anime-quotes anime

Man fears death and yet, at the same time, man is drawn to death. Death is endlessly consumed by men in cities and in literature. It is a singular event in one's life that none may reverse. That is what I desire.

Osamu Dazai

bungou-stray-dogs-2nd-season anime-quotes anime

Anything I would never want to lose is always lost. It is a given that everything that is worth wanting will be lost the moment I obtain it. There's nothing worth pursuing at the cost of prolonging a life of suffering.