4 Quotes by Shōhei Ōoka

...in the distance across the dark fields I saw a flame. With the rainy season, the fireflies had long since disappeared. What then could this be? The flame flickered, now brightly, no dimly, and sometimes it glowed like a halo, as if it had sunk deep into water.I was frightened by this flame. For in my heart I, too, carried a flame.

The familiar shape of the cross still gleamed above the distant forest, but now that I had found companions it no longer made any impression on me.

Why was I not overcome with nausea? At the time I had no such reaction. Perhaps nausea is simply an unconscious device of the egoist, who, when he hears of horrors outside the course of his present serene existence, allows only his stomach to respond

Walking along, I occasionally had to stop by the side of the road to spit out the mucus that kept rising in my throat. It rather pleased me to think of the malignant tubercle bacilli that I had brought from Japan being scorched to death under the tropical sun.