52 Quotes by Kenzaburō Ōe

"After the end of the Second World War it was a categorical imperative for us to declare that we renounced war forever in a central article of the new Constitution."

"After I got married, the first child born to us was mentally handicapped."

"The way Japan had tried to build up a modern state modelled on the West was cataclysmic."

"I am one of the writers who wish to create serious works of literature which dissociate themselves from those novels which are mere reflections of the vast consumer cultures of Tokyo and the subcultures of the world at large."

"Paradoxically, the people and state of Japan living on such moral props were not innocent but had been stained by their own past history of invading other Asian countries."

"Even though we now have the half-century-old new Constitution, there is a popular sentiment of support for the old one that lives on in reality in some quarters."

"In Japan itself there have all along been attempts by some to obliterate the article about renunciation of war from the Constitution and for this purpose they have taken every opportunity to make use of pressures from abroad."

"In the recent years there have been criticisms levelled against Japan suggesting that she should offer more military forces to the United Nations forces and thereby play a more active role in the keeping and restoration of peace in various parts of the world."

"Of course I would not presume to rank myself with the poetic genius Yeats. I am merely a humble follower living in a country far removed from his."

"On the other hand, the culture of modern Japan, which implied being thoroughly open to the West or at least that impeded understanding by the West."