“I am afraid because I can so clearly foresee my own life rotting away of itself, like a leaf that rots without falling, while I pursue my round of existence from day to day.”

—  Osamu Dazai , book The Setting Sun

Source: The Setting Sun

Last update May 5, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am afraid because I can so clearly foresee my own life rotting away of itself, like a leaf that rots without falling,…" by Osamu Dazai?
Osamu Dazai photo
Osamu Dazai 39
Japanese author 1909–1948

Related quotes

Frida Kahlo photo

“I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter
Pelé photo

“If I pass away one day, I am happy because I tried to do my best. My sport allowed me to do so much because it’s the biggest sport in the world.”

Pelé (1940–2022) Brazilian association football player
Henry David Thoreau photo

“I am grateful for what I am & have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite — only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next 1000 years, & exhaust it. How sweet to think of! My extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it — for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Letter to Harrison Gray Otis Blake (6&7 December 1856), as published in The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau (1958), p. 444; a line within this has been most quoted since 1865 in the form "I am ready to try this for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it."

Haruki Murakami photo

“Weakness is something that rots in the body. Like gangrene. I’ve felt that ever since I was a teenager. That’s why I was always on edge. There’s this something inside you that’s rotting away and you feel it all along.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 40, The Rat Who Wound the Clock

Mumia Abu-Jamal photo

“I spend my days preparing for life, not preparing for death… They haven't stopped me from doing what I want every day. I believe in life, I believe in freedom, so my mind is not consumed with death. It's with love, life and those things. In many ways, on many days, only my body is here, because I am thinking about what's happening around the world.”

Mumia Abu-Jamal (1954) Prisoner, Journalist, Broadcaster, Author, Activist

"I spend my days preparing for life, not for death" The Guardian, Laura Smith (2007-10-25)

Margaret Atwood photo

“I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened.”

Margaret Atwood book Alias Grace

Source: Alias Grace

“Similar situation? Like the one where you put me in fear for my life, then let go of that damned vine to heartlessly build my fear? MacRieve, I hope I enthralled you. Then you can rot wanting me to be yours.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

Edward Gorey photo

“There was a young lady named Mae
Who smoked without stopping all day;
As pack followed pack,
Her lungs first turned black,
And eventually rotted away.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

Source: Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey & Peter F. Neumeyer

Grandma Moses photo

“I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I am satisfied with it.”

Grandma Moses (1860–1961) American artist

Grandma Moses : My Life's History (1951)
Context: I have written my life in small sketches, a little today, a little yesterday, as I have thought of it, as I remember all the things from childhood on through the years, good ones, and unpleasant ones, that is how they come out and that is how we have to take them.
I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I am satisfied with it. I was happy and contented, I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.

Robert Frost photo

“'I can repeat the very words you were saying:
"Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build."”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Think of it, talk like that at such a time!
What had how long it takes a birch to rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlor?
You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
Home Burial (1915)

Related topics