Kenzaburō Ōe Quotes

The dead can survive as part of the lives of those that still live.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

Understanding comes hard to persons of high rank who are accustomed to phony lifestyles that involve no daily work.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

We are much too tolerant of the moral aberration of statesmen and bureaucrats.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

The people of Hiroshima went to work at once to restore human society in the aftermath of the great atomic flood. They were concerned to salvage their own lives, but in the process they also salvaged the souls of the people who have brought the atomic bomb.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

Peril-ridden and fragile, the imperfect human body, what a shameful thing it was!

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

For ten years after the atomic bomb was dropped there was so little public discussion of the bomb or of radioactivity that even the Chugoku Shinbun, the major newspaper of the city where the atomic bomb was dropped, did not have the movable type for 'atomic bomb' or 'radioactivity'. The silence continued so long because the U.S. Army Surgeons Investigation Team in the fall of 1945 had issued a mistaken statement: all people expected to die from the radiation effects of the atomic bomb had by then already died; accordingly, no further cases of physiological effects due to residual radiation would be acknowledged.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

Hiroshima is like a nakedly exposed wound inflicted on all mankind.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

We naturally try to forget our personal tragedies, serious or trifling, as soon as possible (even something as petty as being scorned or disdained by a stranger on a street corner). We try not to carry these things over to tomorrow. It is not strange, therefore, that the whole human race is trying to put Hiroshima, the extreme point of human tragedy, completely out of mind.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

When the Russian delegate this summer indicated the Soviet Union's interest in sending medical equipment, Dr Shigeto went right away to see the delegate and settle the matter tactfully. He is careful to steer clear of the superficial swirl of political maneuvering, but never misses any opportunity to improve the capability of the A-bomb Hospital or to enhance concretely the welfare of the patients. In that sense, he sometimes refers to himself as a 'dirty handkerchief.' That is, he serves to filter political purposes out of relief efforts so that the effect on patients is purely and concretely humane.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

Once a person has been poisoned by self-deception, he can't make decisions about himself as neatly as all that.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

It takes a person of great care and insight to watch for any abnormality in the green grass even while it grows abundantly and healthily.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

However, please allow me to say that the fundamental style of my writing has been to start from my personal matters and then to link it up with society, the state and the world.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe