Kenzaburo Oe Quotes

If any suffering was fruitless it was the agony of a hangover; what he suffered now could not expiate suffering of any other kind.

In introducing himself, he had said, "I'm the father," and the doctors had winced. Because something else must have echoed in their ears- I'm the monster's father.

Bird, don't sound so crushed. The fact that I had never had sex before can only have been significant for me, if it had any meaning at all-it had nothing to do with you.

Bird, hesitating, recalled a line from the English textbook he was reading with his students; a young American was speaking angrily: Are you kidding me? Are you looking for a fight?

We can bear ideas and events only when laundered by commentary, like the dirty money concealed by banking secrecy. 'In the heart and the belly it continues to sing its poisonous song - Better to kill a child than to harbour unsatisfied desires within oneself' (Kenzaburo Oe). Ressentiment is an empty, useless passion only if it assumes a sentimental form.