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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

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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.

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There's No Such Thing As Perfect Writing, Just Like There's No Such Thing As Perfect Despair.

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Something Inside Me Had Dropped Away, And Nothing Came In To Fill The Cavern.

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I Don't Really Know If It's The Right Thing To Do, Making New Life. Kids Grow Up, Generations Take Their Place. What Does It All Come To? More Hills Bulldozed And More Ocean Fronts Filled In? Faster Cars And More Cats Run Over? Who Needs It?

If I Have Left A Wound Inside You, It Is Not Just Your Wound But Mine As Well.

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Wasn't He The One Who Said You Shouldn't Trust Anybody Who Calls Himself An Ordinar Man? - Naoko

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You Know What It’s Like When You’re Trying To Fall Asleep And It Only Makes You More Wide Awake?

Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?

As Long As You Have The Courage To Admit Mistakes, Things Can Be Turned Around.

I Hate Requests. They Make Me Feel Unhappy. It's Like When I Take A Book Out Of The Library. As Soon As I Start To Read It, All I Can Think About Is When I'll Finish It.

Passion Can’t Sustain Itself Forever.

As Time Goes On, You'll Understand. What Lasts, Lasts; What Doesn't, Doesn't. Time Solves Most Things. And What Time Can't Solve, You Have To Solve Yourself.

How Wonderful It Is To Be Able To Write Someone A Letter! To Feel Like Conveying Your Thoughts To A Person, To Sit At Your Desk And Pick Up A Pen, To Put Your Thoughts Into Words Like This Is Truly Marvelous.

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

I Think You Still Love Me, But We Can’t Escape The Fact That I’m Not Enough For You. I Knew This Was Going To Happen. So I’m Not Blaming You For Falling In Love With Another Woman. I’m Not Angry, Either. I Should Be, But I’m Not. I Just Feel Pain. A Lot Of Pain. I Thought I Could Imagine How Much This Would Hurt, But I Was Wrong.

If You Want Everything To Be Nice And Straight All The Time, Then Go Live In A World Made With A Triungular Ruler.

I Am Worrying About My Country. I Feel I Have A Responsibility As A Novelist To Do Something.

Kids' Hearts Are Malleable, But Once They Gel It's Hard To Get Them Back The Way They Were.

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

You Have To Wait Until Tomorrow To Find Out What Tomorrow Will Bring.

As Long As Possible, I Would Really Like To Complete One Marathon Per Year. Though My Time Has Been Slowing Down As I Get Older, It Has Become A Very Important Part Of My Life.

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

I Myself Have Been On My Own And Utterly Independent Since I Graduated. I Haven't Belonged To Any Company Or Any System. It Isn't Easy To Live Like This In Japan.

Sometimes I Find It Too Hot To Run, And Sometimes Too Cold. Or Too Cloudy. But I Still Go Running. I Know That If I Didn't Go Running, I Wouldn't Go The Next Day Either. It's Not In Human Nature To Take Unnecessary Burdens Upon Oneself, So One's Body Soon Becomes Disaccustomed. It Mustn't Do That. It's The Same With Writing. I Write Every Day So That My Mind Doesn't Become Disaccustomed.

Sometimes Taking Time Is Actually A Shortcut.

You're Afraid Of Imagination And Even More Afraid Of Dreams. Afraid Of The Resposibility That Begins In Dreams. But You Have To Sleep And Dreams Are A Part Of Sleep. When You're Awake You Can Suppress Imagination But You Can't Supress Dreams.

I Don't Know A Whole Lot About Symbolism. There Seems To Me To Be A Potential Danger In Symbolism. I Feel More Comfortable With Metaphors And Similes.

A Person’s Destiny Is Something You Look Back At Afterwards, Not Something To Be Known In Advance.

Losing You Is Most Difficult For Me, But The Nature Of My Love For You Is What Matters. If It Distorts Into Half-truth, Then Perhaps It Is Better Not To Love You. I Must Keep My Mind But Loose You.

Thinking About Spaghetti That Boils Eternally But Is Never Done Is A Sad, Sad Thing.

That's What The World Is , After All: An Endless Battle Of Contrasting Memories.

They Put Up With Such Strenuous Training, And Where Did Their Thoughts, Their Hopes And Dreams, Disappear To? When People Pass Away, Do Their Thoughts Just Vanish?

Memory Is Like Fiction; Or Else It's Fiction That's Like Memory. This Really Came Home To Me Once I Started Writing Fiction, That Memory Seemd A Kind Of Fiction, Or Vice Versa. Either Way, No Matter How Hard You Try To Put Everything Neatly Into Shape, The Context Wanders This Way And That, Until Finally The Context Isn't Even There Anymore... Warm With Life, Hopeless Unstable.

It Was A Strange Feeling, Like Touching A Void.

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

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

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.

Concentration Is One Of The Happiest Things In My Life.

Her Pupils Have Taken On A Lonely Hue, Like Grey Clouds Reflected In A Calm Lake.

Problem Is, Once I Sit At My Desk And Put All These Down On Paper. I Realize Something Vital Is Missing. It Doesn't Crystallize - No Crystals, Just Pebbles. And I'm Not Transported Anywhere.

Where The Road Sloped Upward Beyond The Trees, I Sat And Looked Toward The Building Where Naoko Lived. It Was Easy To Tell Which Room Was Hers. All I Had To Do Was Find The One Window Toward The Back Where A Faint Light Trembled. I Focused On That Point Of Light For A Long, Long Time. It Made Me Think Of Something Like The Final Throb Of A Soul's Dying Embers. I Wanted To Cup My Hands Over What Was Left And Keep It Alive. I Went On Watching The Way Jay Gatsby Watched That Tiny Light On The Opposite Shore Night After Night.

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.

The Ocean Was One Of The Greatest Things He Had Ever Seen In His Life—bigger And Deeper Than Anything He Had Imagined. It Changed Its Color And Shape And Expression According To Time And Place And Weather. It Aroused A Deep Sadness In His Heart, And At The Same Time It Brought His Heart Peace And Comfort.

Will You Wait For Me Forever?

Everyone, Deep In Their Hearts, Is Waiting For The End Of The World To Come.

I've Translated A Lot Of American Literature Into Japanese, And I Think That What Makes A Good Translator Is, Above All, A Feel For Language And Also A Great Affection For The Work You're Translating. If One Of Those Elements Is Missing The Translation Won't Be Worth Much.

If You Really Want To Know Something, You Have To Be Willing To Pay The Price.

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.

For Some Reason All The Middle-aged Women He Knew Were Very Efficient.

Her Smile Steps Offstage For A Moment, Then Does An Encore, All While I'm Dealing With My Blushing Face.

Generally, People Who Are Good At Writing Letters Have No Need To Write Letters. They've Got Plenty Of Life To Lead Inside Their Own Context.

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