"The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" Quotes
"The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" explores the psychological turmoil of a young acolyte obsessed with beauty and destruction, leading him to burn down a revered temple in post-war Japan.
fiction | 292 pages | Published in 1987
Quotes
Beauty is something that burns the hand when you touch it.
In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.
A man who has been given a perfect thing is a man who will never be satisfied.
Each time I see something beautiful, I feel the urge to destroy it.
It was the sound of the darkness outside.
If we look at the world with a love of life, the world will reveal its beauty to us.
The temple was, after all, only a tool to make me perceive eternal beauty.
The more one loves a thing, the more fragile it becomes.
The world is not something to be improved; it is something to be used.
It is necessary to destroy a thing in order to truly understand it.
