For ten years after the atomic bomb was dropped there was so little public discussion of the bomb or of radioactivity that even the Chuck Shin bun, 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

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

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

— Kenzaburō Ōe

Once a person has been poisoned by self-deception, he can't make decisions about himself as neatly as all that," Yumiko said, elaborating her friend's terrific prophecy;" You won't get a divorce Bird. You'll justify yourself like crazy, and try to salvage your married life by confusing the real issues. A decision like divorce is beyond you now, Bird, the poison has gone to work. And you know how the story ends ? Not even your own wife will trust you absolutely, and one day you'll discover for yourself that your entire private life is in the shadow of deception and in the end you'll destroy yourself. Bird, the first signs of self-destruction have appeared already!" " But that's a blind alley! Leave it to you to paint the most hopeless future you can think of. " Bird lunged at jocularity...

— Kenzaburō Ōe

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

— Kenzaburō Ōe

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

— 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

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