The Only People In This World I

Better To Be Caught In Sudden, Complete Catastrophe Than To Be Gnawed By The Cancer Of Imagination.

Mine Was The Unbearable Jealousy A Cultured Pearl Must Feel Toward A Genuine One. Or Can There Be Such A Thing In This World As A Man Who Is Jealous Of The Woman Who Loves Him, Precisely Because Of Her Love?

We 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.

His Conviction Of Having No Purpose In Life Other Than To Act As A Distillation Of Poison Was Part Of The Ego Of An Eighteen-year-old. He Had Resolved That His Beautiful White Hands Would Never Be Soiled Or Calloused. He Wanted To Be Like A Pennant, Dependent On Each Gusting Wind. The Only Thing That Seemed Valid To Him Was To Live For The Emotions--gratuitous And Unstable, Dying Only To Quicken Again, Dwindling And Flaring Without Direction Or Purpose.

The Cynicism That Regards Hero Worship As Comical Is Always Shadowed By A Sense Of Physical Inferiority