Closing Your Eyes Isn't Going To Change Anything. Nothing's Going To Disappear Just Because You Can't See What's Going On. In Fact, Things Will Even Be Worse The Next Time You Open Your Eyes. That's The Kind Of World We Live In. Keep Your Eyes Wide Open. Only A Coward Closes His Eyes. Closing Your Eyes And Plugging Up Your Ears Won't Make Time Stand Still.

-Haruki Murakami

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Closing Your Eyes Isn't

Haruki Murakami

Topic

Eye

Coward

Ears

More From Haruki Murakami

You’re Here,” I Continued. “at Least You Look As If You’re Here. But Maybe You Aren’t. Maybe It’s Just Your Shadow. The Real You May Be Someplace Else. Or Maybe You Already Disappeared, A Long, Long Time Ago. I Reach Out My Hand To See, But You’ve Hidden Yourself Behind A Cloud Of Probablys. Do You Think We Can Go On Like This Forever?

Real

Thinking

Clouds

Death Leaves Cans Of Shaving Cream Half-used.

Shaving Cream

Half

Used

But The Silence Spoke Volumes.

Silence

Volume

Spokes

At Least He Never Walked.

If You Do Anything Out Of The Ordinary, You Can Be Sure Someone, Somewhere, Will Get Upset.

Upset

Ordinary

Ifs

Something In Her Small Eyes Caught The Sunlight And Glistened, Like A Glacier On The Faraway Face Of A Mountain.

Eye

Mountain

Faces

The Pillow Smells Like The Sunlight, A Precious Smell.

Smell

Sunlight

Pillow

Listen. I May Not Be Much, But I'm All I've Got. Maybe You Need A Magnifying Glass To Find My Face In My High School Graduation Photo. Maybe I Haven't Got Any Family Or Friends. Yes, Yes, I Know All That. But, Strange As It Might Seem, I'm Not Entirely Dissatisfied With Life... I Feel Pretty Much At Home With What I Am. I Don't Want To Go Anywhere. I Don't Want Any Unicorns Behind Fences.

Home

School

Glasses

Everybody Thinks I'm This Delicate Little Girl. But You Can't Tell A Book By It's Cover.' To Which She Added A Momentary Smile.

Girl

Book

Thinking

Isn't Life Strange? There Are People Who Have So Many Leftover Clothes They Can't Stuff Them All In Their Wardrobe. And Then There Are People Like Me, Whose Socks Never Match.

Clothes

People

Stuff

People Fall In Love Without Reason, Without Even Wanting To. You Can't Predict It. That's Love.

Best Love

Falling In Love

People

Running Taught Me To Have Faith In My Skills As A Writer. I Learned How Much I Can Demand Of Myself, When I Need A Break, And When The Break Starts To Get Too Long. I Known How Hard I Am Allowed To Push Myself.

Running

Skills

Long

You Can Hide Memories, But You Can’t Erase The History That Produced Them.

Memories

Erase

Colorless

Don't Pointless Things Have A Place, Too, In This Far-from-perfect World? Remove Everything Pointless From An Imperfect Life, And It'd Lose Even Its Imperfection.

Perfect

World

Pointless Things

Some People Think Literature Is High Culture And That It Should Only Have A Small Readership. I Don't Think So... I Have To Compete With Popular Culture, Including Tv, Magazines, Movies And Video Games.

Thinking

Games

People

Most Human Activities Are Predicated On The Assumption That Life Goes On. If You Take That Premise Away, What Is There Left?

Goes On

Assumption

Humans

Don’t You See? You And He Might Never Cross Paths Again. Of Course, A Chance Meeting Could Occur, And I Hope It Happens. I Really Do, For Your Sake. But Realistically Speaking, You Have To See There’s A Huge Possibility You’ll Never Be Able To Meet Him Again. And Even If You Do Meet, He Might Already Be Married To Somebody Else. He Might Have Two Kids. Isn’t That So? And In That Case, You May Have To Live The Rest Of Your Life Alone, Never Being Joined With The One Person You Love In All The World. Don’t You Find That Scary?

Kids

Two

Scary

Maybe It's Just Hiding Somewhere. Or Gone On A Trip To Come Home. But Falling In Love Is Always A Pretty Crazy Thing. It Might Appear Out Of The Blue And Just Grab You. Who Knows — Maybe Even Tomorrow.

Love

Crazy

Fall

To Be Able To Talk To Your Heart’s Content About A Book You Like With Someone Who Feels The Same Way About It Is One Of The Greatest Joys That Life Can Offer.

Book

Writing

Heart

If You're Going To While Away The Years, It's Far Better To Live Them With Clear Goals And Fully Alive Then In A Fog, And I Believe #‎ Running Helps You To Do That. Exerting Yourself To The Fullest Within Your Individual Limits: That's The Essence Of Running, And A Metaphor For Life.

Running

Believe

Clear Goals

I Just Wanted To Write Something About Running, But I Realized That To Write About My Running Is To Write About My Writing. It's A Parallel Thing In Me.

Running

Writing

Wanted

Inside Him, Twenty Years Dissolved And Mixed Into One Complex, Swirling Whole. Everything That Had Accumulated Over The Years-- All He Had Seen, All The Words He Has Spoken, All The Values He Had Held-- All Of It Coalesced Into One Solid, Thick Pillar In His Heart, The Core Of Which Was Spinning Like A Potter's Wheel. Wordlessly, Tengo Observed The Scene, As If Watching The Destruction And Rebirth Of A Planet.

Heart

Years

Twenties

Forgive Me For Stating The Obvious, But The World Is Made Up Of All Kinds Of People.

People

Forgive Me

Forgiving

She's Kind Of Funny Looking. Her Face Is Out Of Balance--broad Forehead, Button Nose, Freckled Cheeks, And Pointy Ears. A Slammed-together, Rough Sort Of Face You Can't Ignore. Still, The Whole Package Isn't So Bad. For All I Know Maybe She's Not So Wild About Her Own Looks, But She Seems Comfortable With Who She Is, And That's The Important Thing.

Balance

Important

Together

The World Is Full Of Ways And Means To Waste Time.

Mean

World

Way

So Once You're Dead There's Just Nothing? Mari: Basically... Korogi: I Get So Scared When I Start Thinking About This Stuff. I Can Hardly Breathe, And My Whole Body Wants To Shrink Into A Corner. It's So Much Easier To Just Believe In Reincarnation.

Believe

Thinking

Body

But This Thing, Whatever It Was, This Mistlike Something, Hung There Inside My Body Like A Certain Kind Of Potential. I Wanted To Give It A Name, But The Word Refused To Come To Mind. I’m Terrible At Finding The Right Words For Things. I’m Sure Tolstoy Would Have Been Able To Come Up With Exactly The Right Word

Names

Giving

Mind

Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?

Law

Knows

Let The World Move Along As It Pleased. If It Had Any Business With Him, It Would Be Sure To Tell Him.

Moving

Would Be

World

What We Needed Were Not Words And Promises But A Steady Accumulation Of Small Realities.

Life

Reality

Promise

Maybe The Star Doesnt Even Exist Any More.yet Sometimes That Light Seems More Real To Me Than Anything.

Stars

Real

Light

The Best Musicians Transpose Consciousness Into Sound; Painters Do The Same For Color And Shape.

Color

Musician

Sound

Narrow Minds Devoid Of Imagination. Intolerance, Theories Cut Off From Reality, Empty Terminology, Usurped Ideals, Inflexible Systems. Those Are The Things That Really Frighten Me. What I Absolutely Fear And Loathe.

Cutting

Reality

Imagination

There Are Lots Of Things We Never Understand, No Matter How Many Years We Put On, No Matter How Much Experience We Accumulate.

Years

Matter

Why Do People Have To Build Such Depressing Places? I'm Not Saying That Every Nook And Cranny Of The World Has To Be Beautiful, But Does It Have To Be This Ugly?

Beautiful

Depressing

People

But Didn't You Say You Were Satisfied With Your Life?" "word Games," I Dismissed. "every Army Needs A Flag.

Army

Games

Needs

It's A Terrible Thing When A Person Dies, Whatever The Circumstances. A Hole Opens Up In The World, And We Need To Pay The Proper Respects. If We Don't, The Hole Will Never Be Filled In Again.

Filled In

Needs

World

Each Day The Sun Would Rise And Set, The Flag Would Be Raised And Lowered. Each Sunday I Would Have A Date With My Dead Friend’s Girl. I Had No Idea What I Was Doing Or What I Was Going To Do.

Girl

Sunday

Ideas

Which Is Why I Am Writing This Book. To Think. To Understand. It Just Happens To Be The Way I'm Made. I Have To Write Things Down To Feel I Fully Comprehend Them.

Book

Writing

Thinking

When Microorganisms Die, They Make Oil; When Huge Timbers Fall, They Make Coal. But Everything Here Was Pure, Unadulterated Rubbish That Didn't Make Anything. Where Does A Busted Videodeck Get You?

Fall

Oil

Doe

We're Both Looking At The Same Moon, In The Same World. We're Connected To Reality By The Same Line. All I Have To Do Is Quietly Draw It Towards Me.

Moon

Reality

World

Every One Of Us Is Losing Something Precious To Us. Lost Opportunities, Lost Possibilities, Feelings We Can Never Get Back Again. That’s Part Of What It Means To Be Alive.

Life

Mean

Loss

That’s How Stories Happen — With A Turning Point, An Unexpected Twist. There’s Only One Kind Of Happiness, But Misfortune Comes In All Shapes And Sizes. It’s Like Tolstoy Said. Happiness Is An Allegory, Unhappiness A Story.

Thinking

Twists

Stories

At Times Like This, Adults Need A Drink

Adults

Needs

Drink

I Was Confident That I Was A Special Person. But Time Slowly Chips Away At Life. People Don't Just Die When Their Time Comes. They Gradually Die Away, From The Inside. And Finally The Day Comes When You Have To Settle Accounts. Nobody Can Escape It. People Have To Pay The Price For What They've Received. I Have Only Just Learned That Truth.

Pay The Price

People

Special

Each Of Us Possesses A Tangible Living Soul. The System Has No Such Thing. We Must Not Allow The System To Exploit Us.

Soul

Tangible

Exploits

If I Stayed Here, Something Inside Me Would Be Lost Forever—something I Couldn't Afford To Lose. It Was Like A Vague Dream, A Burning, Unfulfilled Desire. The Kind Of Dream People Have Only When They're Seventeen.

Dream

People

Forever

Results Aside, The Ability To Have Complete Faith In Another Human Being Is One Of The Finest Qualities A Person Can Possess.

Quality

Finest

Results

It Feels Good To Think About You When I'm Warm In Bed. I Feel As If You're Curled Up There Beside Me, Fast Asleep. And I Think How Great It Would Be If It Were True.

Relationship

Distance

Thinking

There Is Nothing So Cruel In This World As The Desolation Of Having Nothing To Hope For.

Hope

World

Emptiness

Our Responsibility Begins With Our Imagination.

Responsibility

Imagination

The Passage Of Time Will Usually Extract The Venom Of Most Things And Render Them Harmless

Venom

Passage Of Time

Passages

I'm Not A Fast Reader. I Like To Linger Over Each Sentence, Enjoying The Style. If I Don't Enjoy The Writing, I Stop.

Writing

Style

Enjoy

She Was A Keen Observer, A Precise User Of Language, Sharp-tongued And Funny. She Could Stir Your Emotions. Yes, Really, That's What She Was So Good At - Stirring People's Emotions, Moving You. And She Knew She Had This Power...i Only Realized Later. At The Time, I Had No Idea What She Was Doing To Me.

Moving

Ideas

People

Any Explanation Or Logic That Explains Everything So Easily Has A Hidden Trap In It. I'm Speaking From Experience. Somebody Once Said If It's Something A Single Book Can Explain, It's Not Worth Having Explained. What I Mean Is Don't Leap To Any Conclusions.

Book

Mean

Logic

I Wrote A Huge Number Of Letters That Spring: One A Week To Naoko, Several To Reiko, And Several More To Midori. I Wrote Letters In The Classroom, I Wrote Letters At My Desk At Home With Seagull In My Lap, I Wrote Letters At Empty Tables During My Breaks At The Italian Restaurant. It Was As If I Were Writing Letters To Hold Together The Pieces Of My Crumbling Life.

Spring

Home

Writing

I Didn't Want To Be A Writer, But I Became One. And Now I Have Many Readers, In Many Countries. I Think That's A Miracle. So I Think I Have To Be Humble Regarding This Ability. I'm Proud Of It And I Enjoy It, And It Is Strange To Say It This Way, But I Respect It.

Country

Writing

Humble

Understanding' Is Merely The Sum Total Of Our Misunderstandings.

Understanding

Misunderstanding

It's Just That You're About To Do Something Out Of The Ordinary. And After You Do Something Like That, The Everyday Look Of Things Might Seem To Change A Little. Things May Look Different To You Than They Did Before. But Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Always Only One Reality.

Reality

Everyday

Ordinary

As Long As I Stared At The Clock, At Least The World Remained In Motion. Not A Very Consequential World, But In Motion Nonetheless. And As Long As I Knew The World Was Still In Motion, I Knew I Existed. Not A Very Consequential Existence, But An Existence Nonetheless. It Struck Me As Wanting That Someone Should Confirm His Own Existence Only By The Hands Of An Electric Wall Clock. There Had To Be A More Cognitive Means Of Confirmation. But Try As I Might, Nothing Less Facile Came To Mind.

Wall

Mean

Hands

My Very Existence, My Life In The World, Seemed Like A Hallucination. A Strong Wind Would Make Me Think My Body Was About To Be Blown To The End Of The Earth, To Some Land I Had Never Seen Or Heard Of, Where My Mind And Body Would Separate Forever. “hold Tight,” I Would Tell Myself, But There Was Nothing For Me To Hold On To.

Strong

Thinking

Wind

I'm A Writer. I Don't Support Any War. That's My Principle.

War

Support

Principles

Life Might Just Be An Absurd, Even Crude, Chain Of Events And Nothing More.

Events

Might

Existentialism

When I Write About A 15-year Old, I Jump, I Return To The Days When I Was That Age. It's Like A Time Machine. I Can Remember Everything. I Can Feel The Wind. I Can Smell The Air. Very Actually. Very Vividly.

Birthday

Writing

Remembers Everything

I Closed My Own Jazz Bar So I Could Be A Man Who Can Write Novels As I Like. I Was Pleased About That. This Pleasure Was Connected To The Pleasure Of Writing.

Writing

Men

Bars

And, Well, Mine Are Kind Of On The Heavy Side Anyway. The First Day Or Two, I Don't Want To Do Anything. Make Sure You Keep Away From Me Then.' I'd Like To, But How Can I Tell?' I Asked. O.k., I'll Wear A Hat For A Couple Of Days After My Period Starts. A Red One. That Should Work,' She Said With A Laugh. 'if You See Me On The Street And I'm Wearing A Red Hat, Don't Talk To Me, Just Run Away.

Running

Couple

Two

It’s Pretty Thin, The Wall Separating Healthy Confidence And Unhealthy Pride.

Wall

Pride

Healthy

What I Feel For Her Is A Wholly Different Emotion. It Stands And Walks On Its Own, Living And Breathing And Throbbing And Shaking Me To The Roots Of My Being.

Breathing

Roots

Different

Now For A Good Twelve-hour Sleep, I Told Myself. Twelve Solid Hours. Let Birds Sing, Let People Go To Work. Somewhere Out There, A Volcano Might Blow, Israeli Commandos Might Decimate A Palestinian Village. I Couldn't Stop It. I Was Going To Sleep.

Sleep

Blow

Volcanoes

The Worst Thoughts Usually Strike In The Dead Of The Night.

Night

Strikes

Worst

No Matter How Clear Things Might Become In The Forest Of Story, There Was Never A Clear-cut Solution, As There Was In Math. The Role Of A Story Was, In The Broadest Terms, To Transpose A Problem Into Another Form. Depending On The Nature And The Direction Of The Problem, A Solution Might Be Suggested In The Narrative. Tengo Would Return To The Real World With That Solution In Hand. It Was Like A Piece Of Paper Bearing The Indecipherable Text Of A Magic Spell. It Served No Immediate Practical Purpose, But It Contained A Possibility.

Real

Cutting

Math

When I Am Writing, I Do Not Distinguish Between The Natural And Supernatural. Everything Seems Real. That Is My World, You Could Say.

Real

Writing

World

I Have No Models In Japanese Literature. I Created My Own Style, My Own Way.

Style

Literature

Way

There’s Nothing Wrong With Not Looking Like Something. It Just Means You Don’t Fit The Stereotype Yet.

Mean

Fit

Stereotype

I Go Back To The Reading Room, Where I Sink Down In The Sofa And Into The World Of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, Like A Movie Fadeout, The Real World Evaporates. I'm Alone, Inside The World Of The Story. My Favourite Feeling In The World.

Real

Reading

Night

You Can See A Person's Whole Life In The Cancer They Get.

Cancer

Whole Life

Persons

I Could Disappear From The Face Of The Earth, And The World Would Go On Moving Without The Slightest Twinge. Things Were Tremendously Complicated, To Be Sure, But One Thing Was Clear: No One Needed Me.

Moving

Goes On

World

Sometimes I Think I've Got This Hard Kernel In My Heart, And Nothing Much Can Get Inside It. I Doubt If I Can Really Love Anybody.

Heart

Thinking

Doubt

I’ve Had That Kind Of Experience Myself: I’m Looking At A Map And I See Someplace That Makes Me Think, ‘i Absolutely Have To Go To This Place, No Matter What’. And Most Of The Time, For Some Reason, The Place Is Far Away And Hard To Get To. I Feel This Overwhelming Desire To Know What Kind Of Scenery The Place Has, Or What People Are Doing There. It’s Like Measles - You Can’t Show Other People Exactly Where The Passion Comes From. It’s Curiosity In The Purest Sense. An Inexplicable Inspiration.

Inspiration

Passion

Thinking

An Expectation Was There, Mixed In With So Many Other Emotions - Excitement, Resignation, Hesitation, Confusion, Fear - That Would Well Up Then Wither On The Vine. You're Optimistic One Moment, Only To Be Racked The Next By The Certainty That It Will All Fall To Pieces. And In The End It Does.

Fall

Optimistic

Expectations

Huge Organizations And Me Don't Get Along. They're Too Inflexible, Waste Too Much Time, And Have Too Many Stupid People.

Stupid

Organization

People

I Have This Strange Feeling That I'm Not Myself Anymore. It's Hard To Put Into Words, But I Guess It's Like I Was Fast Asleep, And Someone Came, Disassembled Me, And Hurriedly Put Me Back Together Again. That Sort Of Feeling.

Numbness

Together Again

Feelings

Shakespeare Said It Best,' Tamaru Said Quietly As He Gazed At That Lumpish, Misshapen Head. 'something Along These Lines: If We Die Today, We Do Not Have To Die Tomorrow, So Let Us Look To The Best In Each Other

Looks

Lines

Today

It Was A Short One-paragraph Item In The Morning Edition.

Morning

Paragraph

Items

But What Seems Like A Reasonable Distance To One Person Might Feel Too Far To Somebody Else.

Distance

Might

Feels

At Any Rate, That’s How I Started Running. Thirty Three—that’s How Old I Was Then. Still Young Enough, Though No Longer A Young Man. The Age That Jesus Christ Died. The Age That Scott Fitzgerald Started To Go Downhill. That Age May Be A Kind Of Crossroads In Life. That Was The Age When I Began My Life As A Runner, And It Was My Belated, But Real, Starting Point As A Novelist.

Running

Jesus

Real

It's Because Of You When I'm In Bed In The Morning That I Can Wind My Spring And Tell Myself I Have To Live Another Good Day.

Morning

Spring

Good Day

Strong And Independent? I’m Neither. I’m Just Being Pushed Along By Reality, Whether I Like It Or Not.

Strong

Independent

Reality

I Don't Care What You Do To Me, But I Don't Want You To Hurt Me. I've Had Enough Hurt Already In My Life. More Than Enough. Now I Want To Be Happy.

Hurt

Care

Want

No Matter What You Tell Me, No Matter How Legitimate Your Reasons, I Can Never Just Forget About You, I Can Never Push The Years We Spent Together Out Of My Mind. I Can't Do It Because It Really Happened, They Are Part Of My Life, And There Is No Way I Can Just Erase Them. That Would Be The Same As Erasing My Own Self.

Self

Years

Mind

I Started Writing At The Kitchen Table After Midnight. It Took Ten Months To Finish That First Book; I Sent It To A Publisher And I Got Some Kind Of Prize, So It Was Like A Dream - I Was Surprised To Find It Happening.

Dream

Book

Writing

Sometimes I Feel Like A Caretaker Of A Museum -- A Huge, Empty Museum Where No One Ever Comes, And I'm Watching Over It For No One But Myself.

Museums

Sometimes

Empty

Time Flows In Strange Ways On Sundays, And Sights Become Mysteriously Distorted.

Sunday

Sight

Way

One Last Word Of Advice, Though, Mr. Okada, Though You May Not Want To Hear This. There Are Things In This World It Is Better Not To Know About. Of Course, Those Are The Very Things That People Most Want To Know About. It's Strange.

People

Advice

World

"they Tell Us That The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself, But I Don't Believe That." He Said. Then, A Moment Later, He Added: "oh, The Fear Is There, All Right. It Comes To Us In Many Different Forms, At Different Times, And Overwhelms Us. But The Most Frightening Thing We Can Do At Such Times Is To Turn Our Backs On It, To Close Our Eyes. For Then We Take The Most Precious Thing Inside Us And Surrender It To Something Else. In My Case, That Something Was The Wave."

Believe

Eye

Different

I Always Feel Like I'm Struggling To Become Someone Else. Like I'm Trying To Find A New Place, Grab Hold Of A New Life, A New Personality. I Guess It's Part Of Growing Up; It's Also An Attempt To Reinvent Myself.

Life

Growing Up

Struggle

Lost Opportunities, Lost Possibilities, Feelings We Can Never Get Back. That's Part Of What It Means To Be Alive. But Inside Our Heads - At Least That's Where I Imagine It - There's A Little Room Where We Store Those Memories. A Room Like The Stacks In This Library. And To Understand The Workings Of Our Own Heart We Have To Keep On Making New Reference Cards. We Have To Dust Things Off Every Once In Awhile, Let In Fresh Air, Change The Water In The Flower Vases. In Other Words, You'll Live Forever In Your Own Private Library.

Memories

Flower

Heart

My Short Stories Are Like Soft Shadows I Have Set Out In The World, Faint Footprints I Have Left. I Remember Exactly Where I Set Down Each And Every One Of Them, And How I Felt When I Did. Short Stories Are Like Guideposts To My Heart.

Writing

Heart

Shadow

If, As The Dowager Had Said, We Are Nothing But Gene Carriers, Why Do So Many Of Us Have To Lead Such Strangely Shaped Lives? Wouldn't Our Genetic Purpose-to Transmit Dna-be Served Just As Well If We Lived Simple Lives, Not Bothering Our Heads With A Lot Of Extraneous Thoughts, Devoted Entirely To Preserving Life And Procreating? Did It Benefit The Genes In Any Way For Us To Lead Such Intricately Warped, Even Bizarre, Lives?

Simple

Dna

Way

Although I Didn't Think So At The Time, Things Were A Lot Simpler In 1969. All You Had To Do To Express Yourself Was Throw Rocks At Riot Police. But With Today's Sophistication, Who's In A Position To Throw Rocks? Who's Going To Brave What Tear Gas? C'mon, That's The Way It Is. Everything Is Rigged, Tied Into That Massive Capital Web, And Beyond This Web There's Another Web. Nobody's Going Anywhere. You Throw A Rock And It'll Come Right Back At You.

Thinking

Rocks

Brave

When You're Young, You Think You Can Handle Anything. By The Time You Find Out Otherwise, It's Already Too Late. You Got A Stocking Wrapped Around Your Neck.

Thinking

Too Late

Necks

Curiosity Can Bring Guts Out Of Hiding At Times, Maybe Even Get Them Going. But Curiosity Usually Evaporates. Gust Have To Go For The Long Haul. Curiosity's Like A Fun Friend You Can't Really Trust. It Turns You On And Then It Leaves You To Make It On Your Own - With Whatever Guts You Can Muster

Fun

Long

Curiosity

Silence. How Long It Lasted, I Couldn't Tell. It Might Have Been Five Seconds, It Might Have Been A Minute. Time Wasn't Fixed. It Wavered, Stretched, Shrank. Or Was It Me That Wavered, Stretched, And Shrank In The Silence? I Was Warped In The Folds Of Time, Like A Reflection In A Fun House Mirror.

Fun

Reflection

Mirrors

With The Advent Of Winter, Her Eyes Seemed To Take On A Greater Transparency, A Transparency That Lead Nowhere. Occassionally, For No Particular Reason, Naoko Would Gaze Into My Eyes As If Searching For Something. Each Time I Was Filled With Odd Sensations Of Lonliness And Inadequecy.

Eye

Winter

Advent

Not Just Beautiful, Though--the Stars Are Like The Trees In The Forest, Alive And Breathing. And They're Watching Me.

Beautiful

Nature

Stars

Exerting Yourself To The Limit Over And Over Again, That Is The Essence Of Running. Running Is Painful, But The Pain Doesn't Leave Me, I Can Take Care Of It. That Agrees With My Mentality.

Running

Pain

Essence

Is This What It Means To Go Back To Square One? Most Likely. He Had Nothing Left To Lose, Other Than His Life.

Mean

Squares

Left

Even If We Could Turn Back, We'd Probably Never End Up Where We Started.

Life

Ends

Turns

From The Girl Who Sat Before Me Now...surged A Fresh And Physical Life Force. She Was Like A Small Animal That Has Popped Into The World With The Coming Of Spring. Her Eyes Moved Like An Independent Organism With Joy, Laughter, Anger, Amazement, And Despair. I Hadn't Seen A Face So Vivid And Expressive In Ages, And I Enjoyed Watching It Live And Move.

Girl

Laughter

Spring

But I Found That The Longer You Teach, The More You Feel Like A Total Stranger To Yourself

Stranger

Found

Teach

A Friend To Kill Time Is A Friend Sublime.

Sublime

It Might Not Be Perfect, But The Fundamental Stance I Adopted With Regard To My Home Was To Accept It, Problems And All, Because It Was Something I Myself Had Chosen. If It Had Problems, These Were Almost Certainly Problems That Had Originated Within Me.

Home

Perfect

Fundamentals

I Couldn't Tell Wether The Hole That Opened Up Inside Me Was From Missing You Or From The Change Of Season

Missing

Holes

Seasons Change

In This World, There Are Things You Can Only Do Alone, And Things You Can Only Do With Somebody Else. It's Important To Combine The Two In Just The Right Amount.

Two

Important

World

Perhaps Most People In The World Aren’t Trying To Be Free, Kafka. They Just Think They Are. It’s All An Illusion. If They Really Were Set Free, Most People Would Be In A Real Pickle. You’d Better Remember That. People Actually Prefer Not Being Free?

Real

Thinking

People

Open Your Eyes, Train Your Ears, Use Your Head. If A Mind You Have, Then Use It While You Can.

Eye

Mind

Use

Where There Is Light, There Must Be Shadow, Where There Is Shadow There Must Be Light. There Is No Shadow Without Light And No Light Without Shadow.... We Do Not Know If The So-called Little People Are Good Or Evil. This Is, In A Sense, Something That Surpasses Our Understanding And Our Definitions. We Have Lived With Them Since Long, Long Ago-- From A Time Before Good And Evil Even Existed, When People's Minds Were Still Benighted.

Light

Long Ago

People

Wasn't It Better If They Kept This Desire To See Each Other Hidden Within Them, And Never Actually Got Together? That Way, There Would Always Be Hope In Their Hearts. That Hope Would Be A Small, Yet Vital Flame That Warmed Them To Their Core-- A Tiny Flame To Cup One's Hands Around And Protect From The Wind, A Flame That The Violent Winds Of Reality Might Easily Extinguish.

Heart

Reality

Flames

If You Really Want To Know What's Happening Here And Now, You've Got To Use Your Own Eyes And Your Own Judgment.

Eye

Use

Want

If You Think Of Someone Enough, You’re Sure To Meet Them Again.

Thinking

Enough

Ifs

In Dreams You Don't Need To Make Any Distinctions Between Things. Not At All. Boundaries Don't Exist. So In Dreams There Are Hardly Ever Collisions. Even If There Are, They Don't Hurt. Reality Is Different. Reality Bites. Reality, Reality.

Dream

Hurt

Reality

Say It Before You Run Out Of Time. Say It Before It's Too Late. Say What You're Feeling. Waiting Is A Mistake.

Running

Mistake

Waiting

It's Just Like Sex; When [a Book Is] Finished, It's Finished.

Sex

Book

Writing

Not That We Were Incompatible: We Just Had Nothing To Talk About.

I Do Feel That I’ve Managed To Make Something I Could Maybe Call My World…over Time…little By Little. And When I’m Inside It, To Some Extent, I Feel Kind Of Relieved. But The Very Fact I Felt I Had To Make Such A World Probably Means That I’m A Weak Person, That I Bruise Easily, Don’t You Think? And In The Eyes Of Society At Large, That World Of Mine Is A Puny Little Thing. It’s Like A Cardboard House: A Puff Of Wind Might Carry It Off Somewhere.

Eye

Mean

Thinking

I Saw That She Was Crying. Before I Knew It, I Was Kissing Her. Others On The Platform Were Staring At Us, But I Didn't Care About Such Things Anymore. We Were Alive, She And I. And All We Had To Think About Was Continuing To Live.

Kissing

Thinking

Alive

Sometimes We Don't Need Words. Rather, It's Words That Need Us.

Needs

Sometimes

Properly Speaking, Should Any Individual Ever Have Exact, Clear Knowledge Of His Own Core Consciousness?" "i Wouldn't Know," I Said. "nor Would We," Said The Scientists.

Consciousness

Scientist

Individual

Everybody Has To Start Somewhere. You Have Your Whole Future Ahead Of You. Perfection Doesn't Happen Right Away.

Perfection

Fresh Start

Happens

That's How People Live In The Real World: Forcing Stuff On Each Other.

Real

People

World

When I Was A Teenager, I Thought How Great It Would Be If Only I Could Write Novels In English. I Had The Feeling That I Would Be Able To Express My Emotions So Much More Directly Than If I Wrote In Japanese.

Teenager

Writing

Feelings

He Was Silent For Thirty Seconds, Maybe A Minute. I Uncrossed My Legs Under The Table And Wondered If This Was The Right Moment To Leave. It Was As If My Whole Life Revolved Around Trying To Judge The Right Point In A Conversation To Say Goodbye.

Goodbye

Judging

Trying

All Over The World People Have Developed Their Own Ideas About What's Right And Wrong In Life, But So Long As You Aren't Harming Others Or The Earth, It's Your Choice When You Decide How You Want To Live Your Life - Yours And Yours Alone. Life's No Piece Of Cake, Mind You, But The Recipe's My Own To Fool With.

Cake

Ideas

Long

The Thing I’m Most Afraid Of Is Me. Of Not Knowing What I’m Going To Do. Of Not Knowing What I’m Doing Right Now

Life And Love

Knowing

Right Now

I’m Not Good At Talking,” Naoko Said. “haven’t Been For The Longest While. I Start To Say Something And The Wrong Words Come Out. Wrong Or Sometimes Completely Backward. I Try To Go Back And Correct It, But Things Get Even More Complicated And Confused, So That I Don’t Even Remember What I Started To Say In The First Place. Like I Was Split Into Two Or Something, One Half Chasing The Other. And There’s This Big Pillar In The Middle And They Go Chasing Each Other Around And Around It. The Other Me Always Latches Onto The Right Word And This Me Absolutely Never Catches Up

Confused

Talking

Two

This Was Something Sure To Be Crammed Full Of Warm Secrets, Like An Antique Clock Built When Peace Filled The World.

Secret

World

Antiques

But Who Can Say What's Best? That's Why You Need To Grab Whatever Chance You Have Of Happiness Where You Find It, And Not Worry About Other People Too Much. My Experience Tells Me That We Get No More Than Two Or Three Such Chances In A Life Time, And If We Let Them Go, We Regret It For The Rest Of Our Lives.

Regret

Two

People

I've Been Running A Full Marathon Every Year For More Than 20 Years, And My Record Is Getting Worse. Getting Older, Getting Worse. It's Natural.

Running

Years

Getting Older

I Often Recall These Words When I Am Writing, And I Think To Myself, “it’s True. There Aren’t Any New Words. Our Job Is To Give New Meanings And Special Overtones To Absolutely Ordinary Words.” I Find The Thought Reassuring. It Means That Vast, Unknown Stretches Still Lie Before Us, Fertile Territories Just Waiting For Us To Cultivate Them.

Jobs

Lying

Writing

Writing Talent Is Similar To The Art Of Chatting Up A Girl. You Can Improve To A Certain Degree Through Practice, But Basically You Are Either Born With It Or You Aren't.

Girl

Art

Writing

Even When I Ran My Bar I Followed The Same Policy. A Lot Of Customers Came To The Bar. If One In Ten Enjoyed The Place And Said He'd Come Again, That Was Enough. If One Out Of Ten Was A Repeat Customer, Then The Business Would Survive. To Put It Another Way, It Didn't Matter If Nine Out Of Ten Didn't Like My Bar. This Realization Lifted A Weight Off My Shoulders. Still, I Had To Make Sure That The One Person Who Did Like The Place.

Running

Weight

Matter

We Were Young, And We Had No Need For Prophecies. Just Living Was Itself An Act Of Prophecy.

Needs

Young

Prophecy

Everyone Just Keeps On Disappearing. Some Things Vanish, Like They Were Cut Away. Others Fade Slowly Into The Mist. And All That Remains Is A Desert.

Cutting

Desert

Disappear

Maybe Working On The Little Things As Dutifully And Honestly As We Can Is How We Stay Sane When The World Is Falling Apart.

Fall

World

Littles

It Was As If I Were Writing Letters To Hold Together The Pieces Of My Crumbling Life.

Writing

Together

Crumbling

Everybody Feels Safe Belonging Not To The Excluded Minority But To The Excluding Majority. You Think, Oh, I’m Glad That’s Not Me. It’s Basically The Same In All Periods In All Societies. If You Belong To The Majority, You Can Avoid Thinking About Lots Of Troubling Things.

Thinking

Majority

Minorities

I Have A Million Things To Talk To You About. All I Want In This World Is You. I Want To See You And Talk. I Want The Two Of Us To Begin Everything From The Beginning.

Love

Happiness

Romantic

There Are Three Ways You Can Get Along With A Girl: One, Shut Up And Listen To What She Has To Say; Two, Tell Her You Like What She's Wearing; And Three, Treat Her To Really Good Food...if You Do All That And Still Don't Get The Results You Want, Better Give Up.

Girl

Giving Up

Two

This May Be The Most Important Proposition Revealed By History: At The Time, No One Knew What Was Coming.

Important

May

Propositions

This Is What It Means To Live On. When Granted Hope, A Person Uses It As Fuel, As A Guidepost To Life. It Is Impossible To Live Without Hope.

Mean

Use

Fuel

I Hurt Myself Deeply, Though At The Time I Had No Idea How Deeply. I Should Have Learned Many Things From That Experience, But When I Look Back On It, All I Gained Was One Single, Undeniable Fact. That Ultimately I Am A Person Who Can Do Evil. I Never Consciously Tried To Hurt Anyone, Yet Good Intentions Notwithstanding, When Necessity Demanded, I Could Become Completely Self-centred, Even Cruel. I Was The Kind Of Person Who Could, Using Some Plausible Excuse, Inflict On A Person I Cared For A Wound That Would Never Heal.

Hurt

Ideas

Self

Things Outside You Are Projections Of What's Inside You, And What's Inside You Is A Projection Of What's Outside. So When You Step Into The Labyrinth Outside You, At The Same Time You're Stepping Into The Labyrinth Inside.

Labyrinth

Steps

Projection

If You Try To Use Your Head To Think About Things, People Don't Want To Have Anything To Do With You

Thinking

People

Trying

Pointless Thinking Is Worse Than No Thinking At All.

Thinking

Pointless

The Sky Grew Darker, Painted Blue On Blue, One Stroke At A Time, Into Deeper And Deeper Shades Of Night.

Night

Blue

Sky

Stories Lie Deep In Our Souls. Stories Lie So Deep At The Bottom Of Our Hearts That They Can Bring People Together On The Deepest Level. When I Write A Novel, I Go Into Such Depths.

Lying

Writing

Heart

It's A Dark, Cool, Quiet Place. A Basement In Your Soul. And That Place Can Sometimes Be Dangerous To The Human Mind. I Can Open The Door And Enter That Darkness, But I Have To Be Very Careful. I Can Find My Story There. Then I Bring That Thing To The Surface, Into The Real World.

Real

Dark

Doors

The Rain That Fell On The City Runs Down The Dark Gutters And Empties Into The Sea Without Even Soaking The Ground

Running

Rain

Dark

We Never Choose Anything At All. Things Happen. Or Not.

All Things

Happens

Things Happen

I Get Up Early In The Morning, 4 O'clock, And I Sit At My Desk And What I Do Is Just Dream. After Three Or Four Hours, That's Enough. In The Afternoon, I Run.

Running

Dream

Morning

Life Is A Lot More Fragile Than We Think. So You Should Treat Others In A Way That Leaves No Regrets. Fairly, And If Possible, Sincerely.

Regret

Thinking

Way

It Was A Strange Feeling, Like Touching A Void.

Touching

Feelings

Void

You Don't Have To Judge The Whole World By Your Own Standards. Not Everybody Is Like You, You Know.

Judging

World

Like You

I Write My Novels Personally, Desperately And Non-negligently. When I Write My Novels, I Think About My Novels Only, And Never Do Other Works.

Writing

Thinking

Novel

Music Always Stimulates My Imagination. When I'm Writing I Usually Have Some Baroque Music On Low In The Background Chamber Music By Bach, Telemann, And The Like.

Writing

Imagination

Chamber Music

That’s What Love’s All About. You’re The Only One Having Those Wonderful Feelings, But You Have To Go It Alone As You Wander Through The Dark Your Mind And Body Have To Bear It All. All By Yourself.

Dark

Feelings

Mind

I Often Dream About The Dolphin Hotel.

Dream

Dolphins

Hotel

The Pure Present Is An Ungraspable Advance Of The Past Devouring The Future. In Truth, All Sensation Is Already Memory.

Memories

Past

Devouring

Good Style Happens In One Of Two Ways: The Writer Either Has An Inborn Talent Or Is Willing To Work Herself To Death To Get It.

Writing

Two

Style

If You Only Read The Books That Everyone Else Is Reading, You Can Only Think What Everyone Else Is Thinking.

Inspirational

Book

Reading

I Lost Some Of My Friends Because I Got So Famous, People Who Just Assumed That I Would Be Different Now. I Felt Like Everyone Hated Me. That Is The Most Unhappy Time Of My Life.

People

Atheism

Unhappy

It's All Matter Of Attitude. You Could Let A Lot Of Things Bother You If You Wanted To But It's Pretty Much The Same Anywhere You Go, You Can Manage.

Attitude

Matter

Bother

The Unwaking World Was As Hushed As A Deep Forest.

World

Forests

Oshima's Silent For A Time As He Gazes At The Forest, Eyes Narrowed. Birds Are Flitting From One Branch To The Next. His Hands Are Clasped Behind His Head. "i Know How You Feel," He Finally Says. "but This Is Something You Have To Work Out On Your Own. Nobody Can Help You. That's What Love's All About, Kafka. You're The One Having Those Wonderful Feelings, But You Have To Go It Alone As You Wander Through The Dark. Your Mind And Body Have To Bear It All. All By Yourself.

Eye

Dark

Hands

How Can The Mind Be So Imperfect?" She Says With A Smile. I Look At My Hands. Bathed In The Moonlight, They Seem Like Statues, Proportioned To No Purpose. "it May Well Be Imperfect," I Say, "but It Leaves Traces. And We Can Follow Those Traces, Like Footsteps In The Snow." "where Do The Lead?" "to Oneself," I Answer. "that's Where The Mind Is. Without The Mind, Nothing Leads Anywhere." I Look Up. The Winter Moon Is Brilliant, Over The Town, Above The Wall. "not One Thing Is Your Fault," I Comfort Her.

Wall

Winter

Moon

Only The Dead Stay Seventeen Forever.

Forever

Norwegian Wood

Seventeen

People With Dark Souls Have Nothing But Dark Dreams. People With Really Dark Souls Do Nothing But Dream.

Dream

Dark

People

Age Certainly Hadn't Conferred Any Smarts On Me. Character Maybe, But Mediocrity Is A Constant, As One Russian Writer Put It. Russian Writers Have A Way With Aphorisms. They Probably Spend All Winter Thinking Them Up.

Smart

Character

Winter

It's Like The Tibetan Wheel Of The Passions. As The Wheel Turns, The Values And Feelings On The Outer Rim Rise And Fall, Shining Or Sinking Into Darkness. But True Love Stays Fastened To The Axle And Doesn't Move.

Moving

Fall

Passion

Sometimes When I'm With You, I Remember Things I Lost When I Was Your Age. Like I Remember The Sound Of The Rain And The Smell Of The Wind.

Rain

Wind

Smell

Wherever There's Hope There's A Trial.

Trials

Nights Without Work I Spend With Whisky And Books.

Book

Night

Whisky

Whenever I Meet People For The First Time, I Get Them To Talk For Ten Minutes. Then I Size Them Up From The Exact Opposite Perspective Of All They’ve Told Me. Do You Think That’s Crazy? “no,” I Said, Shaking My Head, “i’d Guess Your Method Works Quite Well.

Crazy

Thinking

Opposites

As If To Build A Fence Around The Fatal Emptiness Inside Her, She Had To Create A Sunny Person That She Became. But If You Peeled Away The Ornamental Egos That She Had Built, There Was Only An Abbys Of Nothingness And The Intense Thirst That Came With It. Though She Tried To Forget It, The Nothingness Would Visit Her Periodically - On A Lonely Rainy Afternoon, Or At Dawn When She Woke Up From A Nightmare. What She Needed At Such Times Was To Be Held By Someone, Anyone.

Lonely

Ego

Dawn

Is It Possible, In The Final Analysis, For One Human Being To Achieve Perfect Understanding Of Another? We Can Invest Enormous Time And Energy In Serious Efforts To Know Another Person, But In The End, How Close Can We Come To That Person's Essence? We Convince Ourselves That We Know The Other Person Well, But Do We Really Know Anything Important About Anyone?

Love

Friendship

Philosophy

My Father Always Told Me: 'give Somebody A Hand And He'll Take An Arm.

Father

Hands

Giving

Life Is So Uncertain: You Never Know What Could Happen. One Way To Deal With That Is To Keep Your Pajamas Washed.

Way

Pajamas

Life Is

I Didn't Feel Like I Was In My Own Body; My Body Was Just A Lonely, Temporary Container I Happened To Be Borrowing.

Lonely

Body

Feels

Unfortunately, The Clock Is Ticking, The Hours Are Going By. The Past Increases, The Future Recedes. Possibilities Decreasing, Regrets Mounting.

Life

Time

Regret

It Was Spring Break, So The Theater Was Always Packed With High Schools Students. It Was An Animal House. I Wanted To Burn The Place Down.

Spring

School

Animal

Irrepressible Curiosity Vied With An Instinctive Fear.

Curiosity

Irrepressible

While They're Still Alive, People Can Become Ghosts.

People

Alive

Ghost

The Moon Had Been Observing The Earth Close-up Longer Than Anyone. It Must Have Witnessed All Of The Phenomena Occurring - And All Of The Acts Carried Out - On This Earth. But The Moon Remained Silent; It Told No Stories.

Moon

Stories

Earth

Everything. Things You Lost. Things You’re Gonna Lose. Everything. Here’s Where It All Ties Together.

Ties

Together

Lost Things

You Are 27 Or 28 Right? It Is Very Tough To Live At That Age. When Nothing Is Sure. I Have Sympathy With You.

Birthday

Sympathy

Age

It Was A Narrow World, A World That Was Standing Still. But The Narrower It Became, The More It Betook Of Stillness, The More This World That Enveloped Me Seemed To Overflow With Things And People That Could Only Be Called Strange. They Had Been There All The While, It Seemed, Waiting In The Shadows For Me To Stop Moving. And Every Time The Wind-up Bird Came To My Yard To Wind Its Spring, The World Descendedmore Deeply Into Chaos.

Spring

Moving

Wind

If You Listen To The Radio For A Whole Hour There's Maybe One Decent Song. The Rest Is Mass-produced Garbage

Song

Radio

Garbage

What Do You Think? I'm Not A Starfish Or A Pepper Tree. I'm A Living, Breathing Human Being. Of Course I've Been In Love.

Thinking

Breathing

Tree

Memories Warm You Up From The Inside. But They Also Tear You Apart.

Life

Memories

Inspiration

Potentiality Knocks On The Door Of My Heart. [on Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning ]

Beautiful

Girl

Morning

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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