Scoundrels [...] simply don't die. The ones who die are always the gentle, sweet, and beautiful people. [...] Scoundrels live a long time. The beautiful die young.

It would seem that the more irresponsible and crafty one is, the more likely one is to have a talent for storytelling.

Now even if I die, no one will be so grieved as to do himself bodily harm.

I want to spend my time with people who don't look to be respected. But such good people won't want to spend their time with me.

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.

People talk of “social outcasts.” The words apparently denote the miserable losers of the world, the vicious ones, but I feel as though I have been a “social outcast” from the moment I was born. If ever I meet someone society has designated as an outcast, I invariably feel affection for him, an emotion which carries me away in melting tenderness.

Victims. Victims of a transitional period of morality. That is what we both certainly are.