Virus Quotes

“Could these wonderful inventions have never been created without first going down the road of armaments and warfare? Was it acceptable that we scholars accepted this as fate—as ‘civilization’s capitalism—the unavoidable state of the utilitarian stage,’ and simply cast our hopes on the future?”
― Sakyo Komatsu, Virus: The Day of Resurrection

“Silverland held two oddly misplaced fears,” continued Carter. “He always acted like he was the cheerful sort who never sweated the details, but like any bully who gets the bully pulpit, his focus on the big picture was just a mask meant to hide what a scared little boy he was. He was a lot like a Southern gambler. In the end, a gambler places more value on a reckless, fearless, all-or-nothing bet than he does on reason. Silverland had reckless courage, but his intellect was just pretense, and in extreme situations, he couldn’t stop himself from making childish decisions. In other words, it was his own despotic creed that no matter what contemptible thing he might do, the person who held the highest position was unconditionally the greatest person, and it followed that the highest level decisions must always be made only by the person in the highest position of authority.” “Enough with”
― Sakyo Komatsu, Virus: The Day of Resurrection

“In the end, the world and its civilization had not been destroyed by the purging flames of Heaven; instead it rotted away from the ground up, consumed and killed by life-forms so tiny that the eye couldn’t even see them. Humanity had died a simple beggar’s death.”
― Sakyo Komatsu, Virus: The Day of Resurrection

“There were unofficial discussions at the time about what would have happened if, heaven forbid, that nuclear warhead had exploded on American soil. There were two possible dangers: one was that the national defense system would fly into a panic and order a full-scale nuclear strike without confirming which country the bomber had come from. In the other scenario, it’s confirmed that one of our own bombers dropped it, but even so someone in the bomber’s chain of command—most likely someone secretly harboring militant feelings—gives the order for a nuclear attack in order to paper over his team’s responsibility. Ever since that time, the human element has been the problem in our strategic nuclear framework.”
― Sakyo Komatsu, Virus: The Day of Resurrection

“The deep darkness of good-natured humans, which causes the noble things of humanity to spoil—the affection for a worn-out, grimy lifestyle, the quarrels between husbands and wives, the cronyish, bureaucratic formalism. What foolish things we humans have consumed ourselves with! Overlaying these most trivial of things with our joy and anger and sorrow and pleasure! This is … this is simply pitiable.”
― Sakyo Komatsu, Virus: The Day of Resurrection

“Ultimately, we lacked the courage to face up to our own true selves—our bare forms noble though petty, everything though nothing, almighty though powerless, filled with all the cruelty of matter and all the infinite kindness of spirit. Human, all too human.”
― Sakyo Komatsu, Virus: The Day of Resurrection

“Tsuchiya said in a voice that was unmistakably him talking in his sleep. “Except the problem is … what kind of ending you get …” Tanabe”
― Sakyo Komatsu, Virus: The Day of Resurrection

“Although we are moving in the right direction, one wonders how long it will take humanity to attain a consciousness of ourselves as human beings first and foremost. I only hope that the forces seeking to strangle us don’t bring about something unfortunate before then.”
― Sakyo Komatsu, Virus: The Day of Resurrection

“Bob, every human being acts for his or her own reasons, and they are by no means fools. Far from being fools, in each and every field there are many wise people. However, when viewed from the standpoint of humanity as a whole, there are often times when what they are doing simply seems bizarre.”
― Sakyo Komatsu, Virus: The Day of Resurrection

“Now add in deaths from old age and disease and expand that to a global scale. Please imagine the sanitary conditions in those underdeveloped regions of the raging tropics and subtropics, and those places where there are neither medical facilities nor doctors. In advanced countries, heart disease resulting from intemperate living and cancer due to air pollution are deadly new epidemics caused by the advance of civilization. Every year, about eight hundred thousand of Japan’s one hundred million people will die—a number rivaling that of the total population of its outlying cities and towns. Fifty million people will die worldwide, out of a global population of three billion—a number about equal to the population of England. That’s what life is like for the human race.”
― Sakyo Komatsu, Virus: The Day of Resurrection