Reading Yukio Mishima

Reading the words of Yukio Mishima, on the naked beach, slowly reading each sentence of Thirst for Love. He’s very good.


Quotes:

“Like an author who thinks himself a genius because his books don’t sell, he felt that his not being asked to lecture anywhere was evidence that the world was not ready for his message.”

“His was an ageing process that worked from the inside out - an ageing process like that which might attack a stuffed eagle, its insides hollowed by white ants.”

“It is not mutual benefit that makes allies of the ordinary nations of this world, it is jealousy.”

“What’s love? Nothing more than symbol falling for symbol. And when it comes to sex – that’s anonymity falling for anonymity. Chaos and chaos, the unisexual mating of depersonalization with depersonalization. Masculinity? Femininity? You can’t tell the difference.”

“No matter how you look at it, from below or above, status is a fine substitute for jealousy.”

“Rumour sometimes follows a more precise logic than fact; and fact, more than rumour, is apt to have a lie in it somewhere.”

“The highest point at which human life and art meet is in the ordinary. To look down on the ordinary is to despise what you cannot have.”

-“Oh yes, dear husband, you are correct; and your haiku show the ordinary at its highest point of development.”