Short Fiction quotes

It was evening. A solitary lackey sat under Rashōmon waiting for the rain to clear.

Beneath the broad gate, there was not another soul. Only, on a big round pillar, from which the vermilion lacquer had peeled off here and there, sat one lone cricket.

Then fortunately his eyes fell upon a wide ladder, likewise red, mounting up into the tower of the gate.

Above, though there might be men, they were but dead men after all.

Then, taking heed lest the great plain-handled sword swinging at his side should slip in its scabbard, he planted a straw-sandaled foot on the bottom step of the ladder.

If someone at that time had broached afresh the question which this man had been considering under the gate a little while before, whether he should starve or turn thief, in all likelihood he would have unhesitatingly chosen starvation.

Thus fiercely, like the splint of pine the old hag had stuck in the floor, blazed up this man’s detestation of evil.

The lackey, of course, did not know why the old hag was pulling out the hair of the dead. Consequently, he did not know, rationally, whether her conduct should be set down as good or evil.

Wherefore, as the escape of the cattle dealer was coupled with his fall, was not the failure of the Devil accompanied by success?

Though the Devil falls, he does not simply rise again. May it not be true that when a man thinks he has won out against temptation he finds to his surprise that he has met defeat?

And here let me add a brief account of what became of the Devil after that. When St. Francis came back, he was finally driven off of the land by the virtue of the holy pentagram.

It was five or six inches long and hung down from above his upper lip to below his chin. As for its shape, it was equally thick at base and tip.

A long and slender sausage, so to speak, dangled from the middle of his face.

The Naigu, who was over fifty, had always grieved in secret at this nose of his from the far-off days when he was an acolyte to the present, when he had reached the position of an attendant at the palace chapel.

In the human heart there are two feelings mutually contradictory.

Of course there is no one who does not sympathize at the misfortune of another. But if that other somehow manages to escape from that misfortune, then he who has sympathized somehow feels unsatisfied.

To exaggerate a little, he is even disposed to cast the sufferer back into the same misfortune once more. And before he is aware of it, he unconsciously comes to harbor a certain hostility against him.

Watch out for your nose there!” The Naigu snatched the stick from his hand and gave him a hard thwack in the face with it. The stick was the one with which his own nose had formerly been held up.

The Naigu came to feel angry regret that he had thoughtlessly shortened his nose.

Then one night the wind seemed to have suddenly begun blowing after sunset and the ringing of the wind-bells on the pagoda came to his pillow annoyingly. Moreover, as the cold increased perceptibly, the old Naigu could not get to sleep, try as he might.

Finally he perceived that the embroidered edge of the wrinkled silk handkerchief moved between her delicate fingers as if stirred by a light breeze.

The lady smiled with her face, indeed, but the truth was that she had been weeping with her whole body from the first.

When the professor had picked up the fan and raised his face, there was an expression on it which had not been there before.

In the matter of going about in pursuit of lice whenever they had leisure, this group was not different from the rest of the party. The only difference was that all they caught, they put one by one faithfully into their bosoms and carefully kept.

But it is seldom in any country in any age that the precursor’s teaching is accepted in its first form by all the people.

In this boat, too, there were many Pharisees who set themselves up against Mori’s doctrines on lice.

No one except the mountain priest knew what a wine worm was, or what would happen when it was no longer in the stomach, or what the jar by Liu’s head was for.

Then you may think that Liu lying out in the burning heat naked without knowing what he was doing was a stupid fellow, but ordinary people receiving a school education are really doing very much the same sort of thing.

It was hot. Sweat came out on his forehead little by little, and no sooner would it form into beads than they would suddenly run warmly into his eyes.

Third. The wine worm was neither Liu’s affliction nor his good fortune. He had always been a heavy drinker. When wine was taken from his life, there was nothing left.

So Liu was himself the wine worm, and the wine worm was Liu.

Therefore, getting rid of the wine worm was quite the same as killing himself. In short, the day Liu stopped drinking wine, he was Liu without being Liu.

I should explain, however, that his pride was due in no sense to a fondness for the thing itself. He was delighted because the power which enabled him to use such a pipe daily was superior to that of the other lords.

In short we may say that he was proud of being able to carry about with him everywhere the million koku of rice of Kaga Province in the form of this pure gold pipe.

So Narihiro was almost never without his pipe while in attendance at the Shōgun’s castle.

When Narihiro heard them, his face clouded with displeasure. The flavor of his Nagasaki tobacco was no longer sweet in his mouth.

For suddenly he felt that the power of his million koku, of which he had been sensible up to this time, was vanishing away utterly like the smoke rising from the end of his pure gold pipe.

According to men now grown old, in the Maeda family, after Narihiro, both Nariyasu and Noriyasu used only brass pipes, and this may well have been the result of a deathbed warning left to his descendants by Narihiro, whose pure gold pipe had taught him …

Then the mother came back with the question what could sing save a man. And through sheer quickness of wit, the girl replied that it might be a badger.

Through the ages, time and again, has love taught such wit to women.

When morning came, the mother spoke of having heard the song to an old woman of the neighborhood who wove straw mats. And the old woman was one of those who had heard the song.

He did not begin to bewitch them, but it came to be thought that he did, you may say.

But how much difference is there after all between being bewitched and believing that one is bewitched?

This is true not only in the case of badgers. Is it not a fact that all things that exist for us are in the end but things in the existence of which we believe?

This is true not only in the case of badgers.

Is it not a fact that all things that exist for us are in the end but things in the existence of which we believe?

It is written in The Celtic Twilight, by Yeats, that some children on Lake Gill believed without a doubt that a little Protestant girl in blue and white garments was the Holy Mother Mary herself.

Should we not believe in that which lives within us just as our forefathers believed that the badger bewitched men? And should we not live as bidden by that in which we believe?

Herein lies reason why we should not despise the badger.

As soon as these thoughts came into his mind, he grasped the thread tightly in his two hands and began to climb up and up with all his might.

Because he was a great robber, he had long been thoroughly familiar with such things.

But Hell is nobody-knows-how-many myriads of miles removed from Paradise and, strive as he might, he could not easily get out. After climbing for a while, he was finally exhausted and could not ascend an inch higher.

Doubtless Kandata’s cold heart that would have saved only himself from Hell and his having received proper punishment and fallen back into Hell, had appeared to the Buddha’s eyes most pitiful.

But the lotuses in the lotus pond of Paradise cared nothing at all about such things.

The pearly white flowers were swaying about the Buddha’s feet. As they swayed, from the golden pistils in their centers, their ineffable fragrance ceaselessly filled all the air.

The horse continued to rush headlong through the almost endless millet-fields, with Khashoji on its back. The din of fighting men and horses, and the clash of swords were now hushed.

The autumn sunshine in Liaotung was serene and peaceful. It was like an autumn afternoon in Japan.

Poor Khashoji was groaning with the pain of his wound, which was emphasised by the rocking movement of his horse. But there was a deeper meaning in the moans which broke through his grinding teeth.

Deep down in my ears still rings his shrill, almost choking, voice, as with the perspiration beading his sallow round face and his eyes constantly pleading for something unknown, he read, “Life is real, life is earnest.”

But the cry of millions of miserable human beings hidden in that shrill voice was too deep to stimulate our ear drums in those days.

So there were many besides myself who even yawned brazenly aloud as we grew more and more weary during that hour.

When I heard this, Mōri Sensei’s sorrowful glance always pleading for something unknown came suddenly before my eyes. Ah, Mōri Sensei! At that moment I felt that I had been able for the first time dimly to understand him, to understand his sturdy character.

If there is such a thing as a born educator, he was surely one.

It was as impossible for him to stop teaching English as to stop breathing. If he were forced to stop, his splendid vitality would droop instantly just like a plant deprived of water.

Ah, Mōri Sensei! At that moment I felt that I had been able for the first time dimly to understand him, to understand his sturdy character. If there is such a thing as a born educator, he was surely one.

It was as impossible for him to stop teaching English as to stop breathing.

If he were forced to stop, his splendid vitality would droop instantly just like a plant deprived of water. So, urged on by his interest in teaching English, he deliberately came alone to this café every evening to sip a cup of coffee.

“

Not only Paris. Balls are just the same everywhere.

”

“

They are heartless, every one of them! While I am rich, they say pretty things, but, as soon as I become poor, they will not even smile at me.

It seems useless to become rich again when I reflect on what has happened before.”