To believe that one should be happy just to be alive, despite leading a hideous existence, is to think like a slave; to think that it is pleasant to … - Yukio Mishima

If my self was my dwelling, then my body resembled an orchard that surrounded it. I could either cultivate that orchard to its capacity or leave it for the weeds to run riot in.

There are some truths in this world that one cannot see unless one unbends one's posture.

Honda... knew that to retain Kiyoaki's affection he must check the unthinking roughness that friendship ordinarily permitted. He had to treat him as warily as one would a freshly painted wall, on which the slightest careless touch would leave an indelible fingerprint. Should the circumstances demand it, he would have to go so far as to pretend not to notice Kiyoaki's mortal agony. Especially if such assumed obtuseness served to point up the elegance that would surely characterize Kiyoaki's ultimate suffering. At such moments, Honda could even love Kiyoaki for the look of mute appeal in his eyes. Their beautiful gaze seemed to hold a plea: leave things as they are, as gloriously undefined as the line of the seashore.

…Her desire was close to that of the person who drowns himself; he does not necessarily covet death so much as what comes after the drowning — something different from what he had before, at least a different world.