He was in a room of the Gesshuuji, which he had thought it would be impossible to visit. The approach of death had made the visit easy, had unloosed the weight that held him in the depths of being. It was even a comfort to think, from the light repose the struggle up the hill had brought him, that Kiyoaki, struggling against illness up that same road, had been given wings to soar with by the denial that awaited him.
Yukio MishimaI seemed like a baby bird keeping its truly innocent animal lusts hidden under its wing. I was being tempted, not by the desire of possession, but simply by unadorned temptation itself.
Yukio MishimaTime is what matters. As time goes by, you and I will be carried inexorably into the mainstream of our period, even though weโre unaware of what it is. And later, when they say that young men in the early Taisho era thought, dressed, talked, in such and such a way, theyโll be talking about you and me. Weโll all be lumped togetherโฆ. In a few decades, people will see you and the people you despise as one and the same, a single entity.
Yukio MishimaWe tend to suffer from the illusion that we are capable of dying for a belief or theory. What Hagakure is insisting is that even in merciless death, a futile death that knows neither flower nor fruit has dignity as the death of a human being. If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death? No death may be called futile.
Yukio MishimaAn ugliness unfurled in the moonlight and soft shadow and suffused the whole world. If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isnโt tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.
Yukio MishimaThe mind, by its very nature, persistently tries to live forever, resisting age and attempting to give itself a form... . When a person passes his prime and his life begins to lose true vigor and charm, his mind starts functioning as if it were another form of life; it imitates what life does, eventually doing what life cannot do.
Yukio Mishima