The Thief's Journal (1949)
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Jnana
cubanet.org (May 15, 2000)
2007, 2008
“I will have to face an ugly truth that has been gnawing through my head…”
In response to the September 11 attacks on New York City
2001
Context: I can't even think about this movie. I don't WANT to think about it because if I think about it I will have to face an ugly truth that has been gnawing through my head...
This started out as a documentary on gun violence in America, but the largest mass murder in our history was just committed — without the use of a single gun! Not a single bullet fired! No bomb was set off, no missile was fired, no weapon (i. e., a device that was solely and specifically manufactured to kill humans) was used. A boxcutter! — I can't stop thinking about this. A thousand gun control laws would not have prevented this massacre. What am I doing?
Wieland; or, the Transformation (1798)
Attributed
“From the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.”
Source: "First Memory", Ararat (1990)
Letter from Naples, Italy to Otto Grautoff (1896); as quoted in A Gorgon's Mask: The Mother in Thomas Mann's Fiction (2005) by Lewis A. Lawson, p. 34
Context: I think of my suffering, of the problem of my suffering. What am I suffering from? From knowledge — is it going to destroy me? What am I suffering from? From sexuality — is it going to destroy me? How I hate it, this knowledge which forces even art to join it! How I hate it, this sensuality, which claims everything fine and good is its consequence and effect. Alas, it is the poison that lurks in everything fine and good! — How am I to free myself of knowledge? By religion? How am I to free myself of sexuality? By eating rice?
like it was chipping away at at me, at my life.“
Source: Audition (1997), Chapter Five, Yoshikawa Asami
