The cynicism that regards hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical inferiority

What transforms this world is - knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.

There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess.

For a long time I had not approached the forbidden fruit called happiness, but it was now tempting me with a melancholy persistence. I felt as though Sonoko were an abyss above which I stood poised.

if the world changed, i could not exist, and if i changed, the world could not exist

Actually the action called a kiss represented nothing more for me than some place where my spirit could seek shelter.

The images which the [press] photographer has filtered from reality, whether particular events or the anguish of human reactions to them, already bear a stamp of authenticity which the photographer is powerless to alter by one jot or tittle; the meaning of the objects, by a process of purification, itself becomes the theme of the work.