Fires on the Plain Quotes

“People seem unable to admit this principle of chance. Our spirits are not strong enough to stand the idea of life being a mere succession of chances—the idea, that is, of infinity. Each of us in his individual existence, which is contained between the chance of his birth and the chance of his death, identifies those few incidents that have arisen through what he styles his “will”; and the thing that emerges consistently from this he calls his “character” or again his “life.” Thus we contrive to comfort ourselves; there is, in fact, no other way for us to think.”
― Shohei Ooka, Fires on the Plain

“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”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“Again, was it not this same presentiment of death that made it seem so strange to me now that I should never again walk along this path in the Philippine forest? In our own country, even in the most distant or inaccessible part, this feeling of strangeness never comes to us, because subconsciously we know that there is always a possibility of our returning there in the future. Does not our entire life-feeling depend upon this inherent assumption that we can repeat indefinitely what we are doing at the moment?”
― Shohei Ooka, Fires on the Plain

“...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.”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“When I felt ill and was on the way to becoming a burden to the other men, I noticed a growing chill in their attitude toward me. For people like us, living day and night on the brink of danger, the normal instinct of survival seems to strike inward, like a disease, distorting the personality and removing all motives other than those of sheer self-interest. That is why this afternoon I did not wait to go and tell my former comrades-in-arms what had happened to me. For one thing, they probably already knew; besides, it seemed unfair to risk awakening their dormant sense of humanity.”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“The yearning in which the moonlit sky had engulfed me was like the craving I had felt for some woman whose body and spirit were unattainable. And now I perceived that it was just because the sky was likewise unattainable that I so yearned for it...”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“Así por ejemplo, la mencionada teoría de las «falsas reminiscencias» toma como presupuesto la idea de que la vida avanza siempre. Pero, por cierto, ¿es que acaso mi vida siempre marchaba hacia delante? ¿No sucedía más bien que en ocasiones mi vida era una sucesión de reiteraciones y retrocesos? Esa hipótesis de que la vida avanza sin cesar y siempre a mejor será sin duda un concepto muy gratificante y halagador para el hombre contemporáneo, pero yo tenía cierta prevención frente a todo lo que sonase a halago. En realidad, lo que necesitaba en aquel momento no era la conciencia de avanzar sino la habilidad de discernir los obstáculos y la capacidad de encontrar los medios idóneos para superarlos. Por lo que a mí respecta, en vez de creer en una evolución humana ilimitada, más me valdría y más racional sería creer en la existencia de un ser superior; creer en el gobierno de Dios, como si dijéramos.”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“Y cuando ya tras las pesadas puertas del mismo, mientras mi mujer se quedaba fuera, advertí en sus ojos esa carga de lágrimas que ella había derramado por mí, pude sentir el peso del corazón que había matado, pero ¿qué suponía a fin de cuentas matar un corazón para alguien como yo que ha matado personas en su integridad corporal y anímica?”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“Mi cadáver tenía las manos juntas sobre el pecho. Quizá me habrían encontrado muerto en ese piadoso gesto y por esa razón mis enemigos, a pesar de todo, estaban celebrando mi funeral religioso. Al haber muerto en actitud de oración, me consideraban santo y como tal me veneraban.”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“Si yo hubiera sido Robinson Crusoe, me habría arrodillado allí mismo sobre la tierra para dar gracias a Dios, pero siendo un oriental ateo no tenía ni idea de a quién o a qué dar las gracias.”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“No sentí el más leve dolor ante la certeza de mi muerte próxima. Quizá haberla presentido recientemente despertaba en mí el gusto por aquella naturaleza, la naturaleza tropical de las islas Filipinas. La dulce sensación que sentí bajo mis botas cuando atravesé el césped que se extendía ante el castillo de Manila, el color bermejo de las buganvillas después de un chubasco repentino, los rojos y amarillos encendidos de sus amaneceres y sus atardeceres, los volcanes teñidos de púrpura, los arrecifes de coral rodeados de la blanca espuma de las olas, los oscuros bosques en la orilla del océano… Todo me arrastraba a un estado de júbilo cercano al éxtasis. Agradecí al destino que se hubiera dignado mostrarme de aquella manera la belleza y la exuberancia de la vida en vísperas de mi muerte. Hasta entonces mi vida no había sido tan rica como yo hubiera deseado, pero parecía que al final yo estaba siendo bendecido por el destino.”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“I lay back and reflected how strange it was that among the bestial residue of a defeated army there should still be scope for a drama like this in which the cynical seducer of a café waitress took under his wing the timid bastard son of a maid. What, I wondered, would happen in the course of the next weeks and months, when conditions were bound to become still worse, to this particular pair who had so quickly adopted the relationship of father and son? By a strange combination of circumstances, I was to know only too well their extraordinary fate.”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“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.”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain

“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.”
― Shōhei Ōoka, Fires on the Plain