❝ ‘Men are sorry creatures who give in easily to glory…. It’s poison: no sooner are you famous than you turn into a fool.’ It was a strange occasion to vent my indignation at my own fate. But let the reader beware. Deep in their hearts grumblers like me really want to be famous, no matter what they say. ❞
“Stubborn cough and wheezing, arthritic pain, coughing up blood, fatigue. Why should I prolong my life? Since my malady has brought my desire for action to a halt, only literature remains in my life. To create literature. There is neither joy nor agony in it. As a consequence, my life is neither happy nor unhappy. I am a silkworm. A silkworm, regardless of whether it is happy or not, cannot help but weave its cocoon. I am just using the thread of my words to weave the cocoon of my tale. Alas, the pitiful sickly silkworm is about to finish the cocoon. His existence no longer has any purpose whatsoever. ‘No, you do have a purpose,’ a friend said. ‘You transform. Become a moth, chew through the cocoon, fly away!’ It is indeed a well-placed metaphor. But the question is whether my body and my spirit still have any strength left to break through the cocoon.”
—
Nakajima Atsushi, Light, Wind, and Dreams
Even though Atsushi never wrote I-novels he did include some autobiographical snippets. In this quote he writes this both from a biographical viewpoint (as Robert Louis Stevenson) and from an autobiographical viewpoint.
