If we can submit ourselves to that eternal slumber, we can doubtlessly win ourselves peace, if perhaps not happiness, but I had doubts as to when I w… - Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Once he had finished writing “The Life of a Stupid Man,” he happened to see a stuffed swan in a secondhand shop. It stood with its head held high, but its wings were yellowed and moth-eaten. As he thought about his life, he felt both tears and mockery welling up inside him. All that lay before him was madness or suicide. He walked down the darkening street alone, determined now to wait for the destiny that would come to annihilate him.

A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.

We are human animals and thus fear death as animals do. The so-called “will to live” is nothing more than a different name for animal instinct. I am but one of these human animals, and when I observe my loss of interest in food and women, I realize I have gradually lost this animal instinct. Now I reside in a world of diseased nerves, as translucent as ice.