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.
Ryūnosuke AkutagawaI could wish for nothing more than to die for a childish dream in which I truly believed.
Ryūnosuke AkutagawaI could have sworn that the man's eyes were no longer watching his daughter dying in agony, that instead the gorgeous colors of flames and the sight of a woman suffering in them were giving him joy beyond measure.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa..he understood far more deeply than anyone else the loneliness that lurked beneath his jaunty mask.
Ryūnosuke AkutagawaHe felt so lost, he said later, that the familiar studio felt like a haunted valley deep in the mountains, with the smell of rotting leaves, the spray of a waterfall, the sour fumes of fruit stashed away by a monkey; even the dim glow of the master's oil lamp on its tripod looked to him like misty moonlight in the hills.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa