Dazai Osamu Quotes - Tumblr Posts

Anxiety was trapped in the depths of my heart, like a formation of black clouds I could not break free of. By living this way, what will my fortune be? There is nothing. Am I simply a sickly man? I was staggered by these thoughts. What should I do? I had no direction, nothing. I though that this reckless life of mine was only a nuisance to others and devoid of meaning. This is quite hard to bear. A talented guy like you probably doesn’t understand, but no thought in the world is worse than the realization that, ‘My life is a nuisance to others. I am useless.’

Dazai Osamu, Pandora’s Box

...I still wait for someone. Who on earth am I waiting for? For what sort of person? Maybe what I’m waiting for isn’t a human. I dislike humans. No, I fear them. When I meet someone and indifferently exchange such greetings as ‘How are you?’ or ‘It’s become cold,’ greetings I don’t want to make, I somehow get the unpleasant feeling that there is no such horrible liar in the world as I, and I wish I were dead. Also, the other people, too, are unduly wary of me and use diplomatic speech which tries very hard to be harmless and inoffensive, and relate their pompous, false feelings. As I listen to it all, I find their petty cautiousness deplorable, and the world becomes more and more unbearably odious. Are ‘people in the world’, I wonder, creatures that spend their whole lives greeting each other in stiff, formal patterns, being cautious about each other, then growing tired of each other? I hate meeting people.

Dazai Osamu, “Waiting”

Even if someone says nasty things about me, I don’t recognize their ill will toward me. I feel thankful that they are forcing themselves to say such difficult things for my sake.

Dazai Osamu, A New Hamlet

For someone like myself in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid and am forever trying to read the expression on people’s faces…

Dazai Osamu, No Longer Human