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.

-Haruki Murakami

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Even When I Ran

Haruki Murakami

Topic

Running

Weight

Matter

More From Haruki Murakami

My Biggest Fault Is That The Faults I Was Born With Grow Bigger Each Year.

Years

Faults

Born

Far Away, I Could Hear Them Lapping Up My Brains. Like Macbeth's Witches, The Three Lithe Cats Surrounded My Broken Head, Slurping Up That Thick Soup Inside. The Tips Of Their Rough Tongues Licked The Soft Folds Of My Mind. And With Each Lick My Consciousness Flickered Like A Flame And Faded Away.

Cat

Flames

Broken

Of Course You Keep Telling Yourself There's Something To Be Learned From Everything, And Growing Old Shouldn't Be That Hard. That's The General Drift.

Growing

Courses

Hard

Her Partially Open Lips Now Opened Wide, And Her Soft, Fragrant Tongue Entered His Mouth, Where It Began A Relentless Search For Unformed Words, For A Secret Code Engraved There. Tengo's Own Tongue Responded Unconsciously To This Movement And Soon Their Tongues Were Like Two Young Snakes In A Spring Meadow, Newly Wakened From Their Hibernation And Hungrily Intertwining, Each Led On By The Other's Scent.

I’m Free, I Think. I Shut My Eyes And Think Hard And Deep About How Free I Am, But I Can’t Really Understand What It Means. All I Know Is I’m Totally Alone. All Alone In An Unfamiliar Place, Like Some Solitary Explorer Who’s Lost His Compass And His Map. Is This What It Means To Be Free? I Don’t Know, And I Give Up Thinking About It.

Giving Up

Mean

Eye

If Only I Could Fall Sound Asleep And Wake Up In My Old Reality!

Fall

Reality

Sound

What We Call The Present Is Given Shape By An Accumulation Of The Past.

Life

Past

Shapes

Someone Who Can Search For Something Is Happy. Searching Gives A Meaning To Life. Nowadays It’s Not So Easy To Find Something You Might Be Looking For. The Most Important Thing, However, Is The Search Itself, The Way You Take. It’s Not So Important Where It Leads. That’s Why My Characters Are Always Looking For Something, Maybe Only A Cat, A Sheep Or A Wife, But That Is At Least The Beginning Of A Story.

Character

Cat

Sheep

Music Brings A Warm Glow To My Vision, Thawing Mind And Muscle From Their Endless Wintering.

Music

Winter

Mind

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.

Missing

Paper

Pebbles

Don't Let Thoughts Of Me Hold You Back. Just Do What You Want To Do. Otherwise, I Might End Up Taking You With Me, And That Is The One Thing I Don't Want To Do. I Don't Want To Interfere With Your Life.

Want

Might

Ends

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

Pain Is Inevitable. Suffering Is Optional.

Inspirational

Life

Motivational

When I Was Fifteen, All I Wanted Was To Go Off To Some Other World, A Place Beyond Anybody’s Reach. A Place Beyond The Flow Of Time.” - But There’s No Place Like That In This World. - Exactly. Which Is Why I’m Living Here, In This World Where Things Are Continually Damaged, Where The Heart Is Fickle, Where Time Flows Past Without A Break.

Heart

Past

Other Worlds

Unclose Your Mind. You Are Not A Prisoner. You Are A Bird In Flight, Searching The Skies For Dreams.

Dream

Healing

Fighting

No Matter What Form The Relationship Might Take, He Was The Only Person She Could Picture Sharing Her Life With.

Might

Matter

Form

She Was Beautiful And Seemingly Quite Intelligent, What With Her Pentameter Search System. There Wasn't A Reason In The World Not To Find Her Appealing.

Beautiful

Intelligent

World

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

Once She Was Out Of The Car And Gone, My World Was Suddenly Hollow And Meaningless.

Car

Gone

World

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

Writing

Perfect

Insightful

It's True That At The Time I Was Fond Of Kurt Vonnegut And Richard Brautigan, And It Was From Them That I Learned About This Kind Of Simple, Swift-paced Style, But The Main Reason For The Style Of My First Novel Is That I Simply Did Not Have The Time To Write Sustained Prose.

Writing

Simple

Style

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

Nobody's Going To Win All The Time. On The Highway Of Life You Can't Always Be In The Fast Lane.

Acceptance

Winning

Lanes

What You See With Your Eyes Is Not Necessarily Real.

Real

Eye

Quake

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

My Grandpa Always Said Asking A Question Is Embarrassing For A Moment, But Not Asking Is Embarrassing For A Lifetime.

Grandpa

Asking

Moments

Pointless Thinking Is Worse Than No Thinking At All.

Thinking

Pointless

So I Made Up My Mind I Was Going To Find Someone Who Would Love Me Unconditionally Three Hundred And Sixty-five Days A Year. Watanabe: Wow, And Did Your Search Pay Off? M: That's The Hard Part. I Guess I've Been Waiting So Long I'm Looking For Perfection. That Makes It Tough.

Years

Long

Perfection

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

Wells

Mines

Left

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

I Was Always Hungry For Love. Just Once, I Wanted To Know What It Was Like To Get My Fill Of It -- To Be Fed So Much Love I Couldn't Take Any More. Just Once.

Love

Hungry

Feds

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

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

In Traveling, A Companion, In Life, Compassion,'" She Repeats, Making Sure Of It. If She Had Paper And Pencil, It Wouldn't Surprise Me If She Wrote It Down. "so What Does That Really Mean? In Simple Terms." I Think It Over. It Takes Me A While To Gather My Thoughts, But She Waits Patiently. "i Think It Means," I Say, "that Chance Encounters Are What Keep Us Going. In Simple Terms.

Mean

Thinking

Compassion

My Point Is: In This Whole Wide World The Only Person You Can Depend On Is You.

World

Persons

Whole

The Faintest Gleam Of Their Lost Memories Glimmered For The Briefest Moment In Their Hearts.

Memories

Heart

Gleam

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

Life

Ends

Turns

Listen - God Only Exists In People's Minds. Especially In Japan, God's Always Been Kind Of A Flexible Concept. Look At What Happened After The War. Douglas Macarthur Ordered The Divine Emperor To Quit Being God, And He Did, Making A Speech Saying He Was Just An Ordinary Person. So After 1946 He Wasn't God Anymore. That's What Japanese Gods Are Like--they Can Be Tweaked And Adjusted. Some American Comping On A Cheap Pipe Gives The Order And Presto Change-o--god's No Longer God. A Very Postmodern Kind Of Thing. If You Think God's There, He Is. If You Don't, He Isn't.

War

Thinking

Japan

It's Good When Food Tastes Good, It's Kind Of Like Proof You're Alive.

Alive

Taste

Kind

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

In Ancient Times, People Weren't Just Male Or Female, But One Of Three Types: Male/male, Male/female, Female/female. In Other Words, Each Person Was Made Out Of The Components Of Two People. Everyone Was Happy With This Arrangement And Never Really Gave It Much A Thought. But Then God Took A Knife And Cut Everybody In Half, Right Down The Middle. So After That The World Was Divided Just Into Male And Female, The Upshot Being That People Spend Their Time Running Around Trying To Locate Their Missing Other Half.

Running

Cutting

Knives

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

Beautiful

Girl

Morning

The Ground We Stand On Looks Solid Enough, But If Something Happens It Can Drop Right Out From Under You.

Looks

Enough

Happens

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

It's Like Tolstoy Said. Happiness Is An Allegory, Unhappiness A Story.

Happiness

Stories

Said

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

Have Books ‘happened’ To You? Unless Your Answer To That Question Is ‘yes,’ I’m Unsure How To Talk To You

Book

Answers

Happened

Here, Too, A Brand-new Day Is Beginning. It Could Be A Day Like All The Others, Or It Could Be A Day Remarkable Enough In Many Ways To Remain In The Memory. In Either Case, For Now, For Most People, It Is A Blank Sheet Of Paper.

Memories

People

New Day

What Happens When People Open Their Hearts?"... "they Get Better.

Broken Heart

Healing

People

But Actually Time Isn't A Straight Line. It Doesn't Ave A Shape. In All Senses Of The Term, It Doesn't Have Any Form. But Since We Can't Picture Something Without Form In Our Minds, For The Sake Of Convenience We Understand It As A Straight Line. At This Point, Humans Are The Only Ones Who Can Make That Sort Of Conceptual Substitution.

Mind

Shapes

Lines

The Things She Most Wanted To Tell Him Would Lose Their Meaning The Moment She Put Them Into Words.

Moments

Wanted

Most Wanted

The Little Things Are Important, Mr. Wind-up Bird.

Wind

Bird

Important

I Would Stare At The Grains Of Light Suspended In That Silent Space, Struggling To See Into My Own Heart. What Did I Want? And What Did Others Want From Me? But I Could Never Find The Answers. Sometimes I Would Reach Out And Try To Grasp The Grains Of Light, But My Fingers Touched Nothing.

Struggle

Heart

Light

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

Nakata's Empty Inside... Do You Know What It Means To Be Completely Empty? Being Empty Is Like A Vacant House. An Unlocked, Vacant House. Anybody Can Come In, Anytime They Want. That's What Scares Me The Most

Mean

House

Scare

..finally He Was Just Another Ant, Working And Working Until He Died Without Meaning.

Ants

Died

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

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

I Am Here, Alone, At The End Of The World. I Reach Out And Touch Nothing.”.

World

End Of The World

Ends

Killing Time Is Not An Easy Job.

Time

Jobs

Killing

He Appeared Before Me And Departed. We Were Not Able To Speak To Or Touch Each Other. But In That Short Interval, He Transformed Many Things Inside Me. He Literally Stirred My Mind And Body The Way A Spoon Stirs A Cup Of Cocoa, Down To The Depths Of My Internal Organs And My Womb.

Departed

Mind

Depth

As I See It, You Are Living With Something That You Keep Hidden Deep Inside. Something Heavy. I Felt It From The First Time I Met You. You Have A Strong Gaze, As If You Have Made Up Your Mind About Something. To Tell You The Truth, I Myself Carry Such Things Around Inside. Heavy Things. That Is How I Can See It In You.

Strong

Mind

Heavy Things

But If You Peeled Away The Ornamental Egos That She Had Built, There Was Only An Abyss Of Nothingness And The Intense Thirst That Came With It.

Ego

Intense

Abyss

Sex Is An Extremely Subtle Undertaking, Unlike Going To The Department Store On A Sunday To Buy A Thermos.

Sex

Sunday

Subtle

Whenever She Felt Like Crying, She Would Instead Become Angry—at Someone Else Or At Herself—which Meant That It Was Rare For Her To Shed Tears.

Angry At Someone

Tears

Cry

Then She Took My Hand And Touched It To The Wound Beside Her Eye. I Caressed The Half-inch Scar. As I Did So, The Waves Of Her Consciousness Pulsed Through My Fingertips And Into Me - A Delicate Resonance Of Longing. Probably Someone Should Take This Girl In His Arms And Hold Her Tight, I Thought. Probably Someone Other Than Me. Someone Qualified To Give Her Something. "goodbye, Mr. Wind-up Bird. See You Again Sometime.

Girl

Goodbye

Eye

I Write Weird Stories. I Don't Know Why I Like Weirdness So Much ... But When I Write, I Write Weird. That's Very Strange. When I'm Getting More And More Serious, I'm Getting More And More Weird.

Writing

Stories

Serious

I Can Be Hurt, You Know. I Can Get As Exhausted As Anybody Else. I Can Feel So Bad I Want To Cry, Too.

Hurt

Want

Exhausted

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

Me, I've Seen 45 Years And I've Only Figured Out One Thing. That's This: If A Person Would Just Make The Effort, There's Something To Be Learned From Everything. From Even The Most Ordinary, Commonplace Things, There's Always Something You Can Learn. I Read Somewhere That They Said There's Even Different Philosophies In Razors. Fact Is, If It Weren't For That, Nobody'd Survive.

Philosophy

Years

Effort

There Is Nothing In This World That Never Takes A Step Outside A Person's Heart.

Honesty

Heart

World

Tengo Could Hardly Believe It-- That In This Frantic, Labyrinth-like World, Two People's Hearts-- A Boy's And A Girl's-- Could Be Connected, Unchanged, Even Though They Hadn't Seen Each Other For Twenty Years.

Girl

Believe

Heart

You Are A Beautiful Person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But You Seem Always To Be Dragging Your Heart Along The Ground. From Now On, Little By Little, You Must Prepare Yourself To Face Death. If You Devote All Of Your Future Energy To Living, You Will Not Be Able To Die Well. You Must Begin To Shift Gears, A Little At A Time. Living And Dying Are, In A Sense, Of Equal Value.

Beautiful

Strong

Heart

Did You Ever See Anyone Shot By A Gun Without Bleeding?

Gun

Bleeding

Shots

On Any Given Day, Something Claims Our Attention. Anything At All, Inconsequential Things. A Rosebud, A Misplaced Hat, That Sweater We Liked As A Child, An Old Gene Pitney Record. A Parade Of Trivia With No Place To Go. Things That Bump Around In Our Consciousness For Two Or Three Days Then Go Back To Wherever They Came From... To Darkness. We've Got All These Wells Dug In Our Hearts. While Above The Wells, Birds Flit Back And Forth.

Children

Heart

Two

"between A High, Solid Wall And An Egg That Breaks Against It, I Will Always Stand On The Side Of The Egg." Yes, No Matter How Right The Wall May Be And How Wrong The Egg, I Will Stand With The Egg. Someone Else Will Have To Decide What Is Right And What Is Wrong; Perhaps Time Or History Will Decide. If There Were A Novelist Who, For Whatever Reason, Wrote Works Standing With The Wall, Of What Value Would Such Works Be?

Wall

Eggs

Novelists

It's Not Right For One Friend To Do All The Giving And The Other To Do All The Taking: That's Not Real Friendship.

Giving

One Friend

I'm All Alone, But I'm Not Lonely.

Lonely

All Alone

Aomame

I Dream. Sometimes I Think That’s The Only Right Thing To Do. To Dream, To Live In The World Of Dreams. But It Doesn’t Last Forever. Wakefulness Always Comes To Take Me Back.

Dream

Thinking

Forever

Having An Object That Symbolizes Freedom Might Make A Person Happier Than Actually Getting The Freedom It Represents.

Might

Persons

Objects

I Just Gave Them A Little Scare. A Touch Of Psychological Terror. As Joseph Conrad Once Wrote, True Terror Is The Kind That Men Feel Towards Their Imagination. (from Super-frog Saves Tokyo)

Men

Imagination

Scare

It Is Not That The Meaning Cannot Be Explained. But There Are Certain Meanings That Are Lost Forever The Moment They Are Explained In Words.

Forever

Moments

Lost

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

As Long As There's Such A Thing As Time, Everybody's Damaged In The End, Changed Into Something Else. It Always Happens, Sooner Or Later.

Long

Ends

Changed

In My Younger Days, I Was Trying To Write Sophisticated Prose And Fantastic Stories.

Writing

Trying

Stories

Either I'm Funny Or The World's Funny. I Don't Know Which. The Bottle And Lid Don't Fit. It Could Be The Bottle's Fault Or The Lid's Fault. In Either Case, There's No Denying That The Fit Is Bad.

World

Faults

Bottles

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

[but] We Accept Irony Through A Device Called Metaphor. And Through That We Grow And Become Deeper Human Beings.

Irony

Metaphor

Accepting

You Have To Be Practical. So Every Time I Say, If You Want To Write A Novel You Have To Be Practical, People Get Bored. They Are Disappointed. They Are Expecting A More Dynamic, Creative, Artistic Thing To Say. What I Want To Say Is: You Have To Be Practical.

Writing

People

Bored

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

Eye

Mountain

Faces

People Need Routines. It's Like A Theme In Music. But It Also Restrictsyour Thoughts And Actions And Limits Your Freedom. It Structures Your Priorities And In Some Cases Distorts Your Logic.

People

Priorities

Needs

I'd Be Smiling And Chatting Away, And My Mind Would Be Floating Around Somewhere Else, Like A Balloon With A Broken String.

Somewhere Else

Broken

Mind

What I Think Is This: You Should Give Up Looking For Lost Cats And Start Searching For The Other Half Of Your Shadow.

Giving Up

Cat

Thinking

Mere Humans Who Root Through Their Refrigerators At Three O'clock In The Morning Can Only Produce Writing That Matches What They Do. And That Includes Me.

Morning

Writing

Roots

All I Do Is Keep On Running In My Own Cozy, Homemade Void, My Own Nostalgic Silence. And This Is A Pretty Wonderful Thing. No Matter What Anybody Else Says.

Running

Silence

Cozy

Distance Might Not Solve Anything, No Matter How Far You Run.

Running

Distance

Might

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

Hope

World

Emptiness

My Face, My Self, What Would They Mean To Anybody? Just Another Stiff. So This Self Of Mine Passes Some Other's Self On The Street - What Do We Have To Say To Each Other? Hey There! Hi Ya!that's About It. Nobody Raises A Hand. No One Turns Around To Take Another Look.

Mean

Self

Hands

There Are Symbolic Dreams-- Dreams That Symbolize Some Reality. Then There Are Symbolic Realities -- Realities That Symbolize A Dream. Symbols Are What You Might Call The Honorary Town Councillors Of The Worm Universe. In The Worm Universe, There Is Nothing Unusual About A Dairy Cow Seeking A Pair Of Pliers. A Cow Is Bound To Get Her Pliers Sometime. It Has Nothing To Do With Me.

Dream

Reality

Pliers

If You Remember Me, Then I Don't Care If Everyone Else Forgets.

Love

Philosophical

Care

Fate Seems To Be Taking Me In Some Even Stranger Directions.

Fate

Stranger

Seems

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

Life

Reality

Promise

It Is Very Simple, Actually. It Is Because You And Tengo Were So Powerfully Drawn To Each Other.

Simple

Lust

This Place Is Too Calm, Too Natural--too Complete. I Don't Deserve It. At Least Not Yet.

Calm

Natural

Deserve

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

Pulled Into My Convenient Neighborhood Fast Food Restaurant. I Ordered Shrimp Salad, Onion Rings, And A Beer. The Shrimp Were Straight Out Of The Freezer, The Onion Rings Soggy. Looking Around The Place, Though, I Failed To Spot A Single Customer Banging On A Tray Or Complaining To A Waitress. So I Shut Up And Finished My Food. Expect Nothing, Get Nothing.

Beer

Complaining

Shrimp

Symbolism And Meaning Are Two Separate Things. I Think She Found The Right Words By Bypassing Procedures Like Meaning And Logic. She Captured Words In A Dream, Like Delicately Catching Hold Of A Butterfly’s Wings As It Flutters Around. Artists Are Those Who Can Evade The Verbose.

Dream

Butterfly

Artist

This Uneasiness Comes Over Me From Time To Time, And I Feel As If I've Somehow Been Pieced Together From Two Different Puzzles.

Two

Together

Different

This Is One More Piece Of Advice I Have For You: Don't Get Impatient. Even If Things Are So Tangled Up You Can't Do Anything, Don't Get Desperate Or Blow A Fuse And Start Yanking On One Particular Thread Before It's Ready To Come Undone. You Have To Realize It's Going To Be A Long Process And That You'll Work On Things Slowly, One At A Time.

Patience

Blow

Tangled

The Best Way To Think About Reality, I Had Decided, Was To Get As Far Away From It As Possible.

Reality

Thinking

Way

I Keep To This Routine Every Day Without Variation. The Repetition Itself Becomes The Important Thing; It's A Form Of Mesmerism. I Mesmerize Myself To Reach A Deeper State Of Mind.

Mind

Important

Routine

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

Lonely

Taken

Lakes

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

Distance

Might

Feels

I Stare At This Ceaseless, Rushing Crowd And Imagine A Time A Hundred Years From Now. In A Hundred Years Everybody Here-me Included-will Have Disappeared From The Face Of The Earth And Turned Into Ashes Or Dust. A Weird Thought, But Everything In Front Of Me Starts To Seem Unreal, Like A Gust Of Wind Could Blow It All Away.

Blow

Dust

Years

I Like To Read Books. I Like To Listen To Music.

Book

Listening To Music

I'm Scared," She Said. "these Days I Feel Like A Snail Without A Shell." "i'm Scared Too," I Said. "i Feel Like A Frog Without Any Webs." She Looked Up And Smiled. Wordlessly We Walked Over To A Shaded Part Of The Building And Held Each Other And Kissed, A Shell-less Snail And A Webless Frog.

Shells

Frogs

Scared

A Theory Is A Battlefield In Your Head.

Theory

Battlefields

They Take The Circuits Out Of People’s Brains That Make It Possible For Them To Think For Themselves. Their World Is Like The One That George Orwell Depicted In His Novel. I’m Sure You Realize That There Are Plenty Of People Who Are Looking For Exactly That Kind Of Brain Death. It Makes Life A Lot Easier. You Don’t Have To Think About Difficult Things, Just Shut Up And Do What Your Superiors Tell You To Do.

Thinking

People

Brain

Only Where There Is Disillusionment And Depression And Sorrow Does Happiness Arise; Without The Despair Of Loss, There Is No Hope.

Loss

Sorrow

Despair

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

I Wondered If She Was Trying To Convey Something To Me, Something She Could Not Put Into Words - Something Prior To Words That She Could Not Grasp Within Herself And Which Therefore Had No Hope Of Ever Turning Into Words.

Trying

No Hope

Ifs

It's Just A Feeling I Have. What You See With Your Eyes Is Not Necessarily Real. My Enemy Is, Among Other Things, The Me Inside Me.

Real

Eye

Feelings

I Move, Therefore I Am.

Moving

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

Well, Think Of What I’m Doing To You Right Now. For Me I’m The Self, And You’re The Object. For You, Of Course, It’s The Exact Opposite—you’re The Self To You And I’m The Object. And By Exchanging Self And Object, We Can Project Ourselves Onto The Other And Gain Self-consciousness. Volitionally.” “i Still Don’t Get It, But It Sure Feels Good.” “that’s The Whole Idea,” The Girl Said.

Girl

Thinking

Self

I Don't Know -- Maybe The World Has Two Different Kinds Of People, And For One Kind The World Is This Completely Logical, Rice Pudding Place, And For The Other It's All Hit-or-miss Macaroni Gratin.

Two

People

Missing

The Pillow Smells Like The Sunlight, A Precious Smell.

Smell

Sunlight

Pillow

Sometimes I Wonder Why I'm A Novelist Right Now. There Is No Definite Career Reason Why I Became A Writer. Something Happened, And I Became A Writer. And Now I'm A Successful Writer.

Successful

Careers

Novelists

There Wasn't A Cloud In The Sky, No Wind, And Everything Was Quiet Around Us - All We Could Hear Were Birds Chirping In The Woods. The War Seemed Like Something In A Faraway Land That Had Nothing To Do With Us. We Sang Songs As We Hiked Up The Hill, Sometimes Imitating The Birds We Heard. Except For The Fact That The War Was Still Going On, It Was A Perfect Morning.

Song

Morning

War

Overhead, The Two Moons Worked Together To Bathe The World In A Strange Light.

Moon

Light

Two

In The World We Live In, What We Know And What We Don't Know Are Like Siamese Twins, Inseparable, Existing In A State Of Confusion.

Knowledge

Confusion

World

Like Flowers Scattered In A Storm, A Man's Life Is A Long Farewell.

Flower

Farewell

Men

Instead Of Things I'm Good At, It Might Be Faster To List The Things I Can't Do. I Can't Cook Or Clean The House. My Room's A Mess, And I'm Always Losing Things. I Love Music, But I Can't Sing A Note. I'm Clumsy And Can Barely Sew A Stitch. My Sense Of Direction Is The Pits, And I Can't Tell Left From Right Half The Time. When I Get Angry, I Tend To Break Things. Plates And Pencils, Alarm Clocks. Later On I Regret It, But At The Time I Can't Help Myself. I Have No Money In The Bank. I'm Bashful For No Reason, And I Have Hardly Any Friends To Speak Of.

Regret

House

Half

And As We Live Our Lives We Discover - Drawing Toward Us The Thin Threads Attached To Each - What Has Been Lost. I Closed My Eyes And Tried To Bring To Mind As Many Beautiful Lost Things As I Could. Drawing Them Closer, Holding On To Them.

Beautiful

Eye

Drawing

Everything Has Boundaries. The Same Holds True With Thought. You Shouldn't Fear Boundaries, But You Also Should Not Be Afraid Of Destroying Them. That's What Is Most Important If You Want To Be Free: Respect For And Exasperation With Boundaries. What's Really Important In Life Is Always The Things That Are Secondary.

Important

Want

Life Is

And As The Years Have Passed, The Time Has Grown Longer. The Sad Truth Is That What I Could Recall In Five Seconds All Too Needed Ten, Then Thirty, Then A Full Minute - Like Shadows Lengthening At Dusk. Someday, I Suppose, The Shadows Will Be Swallowed Up In Darkness.

Years

Darkness

Shadow

Time Weighs Down On You Like An Old, Ambiguous Dream. You Keep On Moving, Trying To Sleep Through It. But Even If You Go To The Ends Of The Earth, You Won't Be Able To Escape It. Still, You Have To Go There- To The Edge Of The World. There's Something You Can't Do Unless You Get There.

Life

Dream

Moving

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

Events

Might

Existentialism

If You Want To Talk About Something New, You Have To Make Up A New Kind Of Language.

Want

Language

Kind

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

For A Certain Kind Of Person, Love Begins From Something Tiny Or Silly. From Something Like That Or It Doesnt Begin At All.

Silly

Tiny

Kind

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

Why?" She Screamed. "are You Crazy? You Know The English Subjunctive, You Understand Trigonometry, You Can Read Marx, And You Don't Know The Answer To Something As Simple As That? Why Do You Even Have To Ask? Why Do You Have To Make A Girl Say Something Like This? I Like You More Than I Like Him, That's All. I Wish I Had Fallen In Love With Somebody A Little More Handsome, Of Course. But I Didn't. I Fell In Love With You!

Girl

I Like You

Crazy

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

Heart

Waiting

World

I Read Naoko's Letter Again And Again, And Each Time I Read It I Would Be Filled With The Same Unbearable Sadness I Used To Feel Whenever Naoko Stared Into My Eyes. I Had No Way To Deal With It, No Place I Could Take It To Or Hide It Away. Like The Wind Passing Over My Body, It Had Neither Shape Nor Weight, Nor Could I Wrap Myself In It.

Sadness

Eye

Wind

Precipitate As Weather, She Appeared From Somewhere, Then Evaporated, Leaving Only Memory.

Memories

Weather

Leaving

Fate Is Like A Small Sandstorm That Keeps Changing Directions. You Change Direction But The Sandstorm Chases You. You Turn Again, But The Storm Adjusts. Over And Over You Play This Out, Like Some Ominous Dance With Death Just Before Dawn. Why? Because This Storm Isn't Something That Blew In From Far Away, Something That Has Nothing To Do With You. This Storm Is You. Something Inside Of You. So All You Can Do Is Give In To It, Step Right Inside The Storm, Closing Your Eyes And Plugging Up Your Ears So The Sand Doesn't Get In, And Walk Through It, Step By Step.

Eye

Fate

Play

But Why Should You Be Interested In Me?" Good Question. I Can’t Explain It Myself Right This Moment. But Maybe – Just Maybe – If We Start Getting Together And Talking, After A While Something Like Francis Lai’s Soundtrack Music Will Start Playing In The Background, And A Whole Slew Of Concrete Reasons Why I’m Interested In You Will Line Up Out Of Nowhere. With Luck, It Might Even Snow For Us.

Talking

Snow

Luck

I Don't Think Of Myself As An Artist. I'm Just A Guy Who Can Write.

Writing

Artist

Thinking

I Could Have Been A Cult Writer If I'd Kept Writing Surrealistic Novels. But I Wanted To Break Into The Mainstream, So I Had To Prove That I Could Write A Realistic Book.

Book

Writing

Realistic

Silence, I Discover, Is Something You Can Actually Hear.

Life

Silence

Norwegian Wood

If Writing Novels Is Like Planting A Forest, Then Writing Short Stories Is More Like Planting A Garden.

Writing

Garden

Stories

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

I Am Nothing. I’m Like Someone Who’s Been Thrown Into The Ocean At Night, Floating All Alone. I Reach Out, But No One Is There. I Call Out, But No One Answers. I Have No Connection To Anything.

Ocean

Night

Numbness

Writing Is Fun - At Least Mostly. I Write For Four Hours Every Day. After That I Go Running. As A Rule, 10 Kilometers (6.2 Miles). That's Easy To Manage.

Running

Fun

Writing

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 Never Plan. I Never Know What The Next Page Is Going To Be..... But That's The Fun Of Writing A Novel Or A Story, Because I Don't Know What's Going To Happen Next.

Fun

Writing

Stories

Irrepressible Curiosity Vied With An Instinctive Fear.

Curiosity

Irrepressible

Life Is Here, Death Is Over There. I Am Here, Not Over There.

Life Is

To Know One’s Own State Is Not A Simple Matter. One Cannot Look Directly At One’s Own Face With One’s Own Eyes, For Example. One Has No Choice But To Look At One’s Reflection In The Mirror. Through Experience, We Come To Believe That The Image Is Correct, But That Is All.

Believe

Eye

Reflection

No Matter Where I Go, I Still End Up Me. What's Missing Never Changes. The Scenery May Change, But I'm Still The Same Incomplete Person. The Same Missing Elements Torture Me With A Hunger That I Can Never Satisfy. I Think That Lack Itself Is As Close As I'll Come To Defining Myself.

Change

Being Yourself

Thinking

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.

Running

Writing

Next Day

I Began To Draw An Invisible Boundary Between Myself And Other People. No Matter Who I Was Dealing With. I Maintained A Set Distance, Carefully Monitoring The Person’s Attitude So That They Wouldn’t Get Any Closer. I Didn’t Easily Swallow What Other People Told Me. My Only Passions Were Books And Music

Attitude

Distance

Book

The Power To Concentrate Was The Most Important Thing. Living Without This Power Would Be Like Opening One’s Eyes Without Seeing Anything.

Eye

Important

Would Be

Whether It's Good For Anything Or Not, Cool Or Totally Uncool, In The Final Analysis What's Most Important Is What You Can't See But Can Feel In Your Heart.

Heart

Important

Finals

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

Sex

Book

Writing

Sometimes You’re Just The Sweetest Thing. Like Christmas, Summer Vacation, And A Brand-new Puppy Rolled Into One.

Summer

Vacation

Puppy

Kafka Is One Of My Very Favorite Writers. Kafka's Fictional World Is Already So Complete That Trying To Follow In His Steps Is Not Just Pointless, But Quite Risky, Too. What I See Myself Doing, Rather, Is Writing Novels Where, In My Own Way, I Dismantle The Fictional World Of Kafka That Itself Dismantled The Existing Novelistic System.

Writing

Trying

World

A Regular Wind-up Toy World This Is, I Think. Once A Day The Wind-up Bird Has To Come And Wind The Springs Of This World. Alone In This Fun House, Only I Grow Old, A Pale Softball Of Death Swelling Inside Me. Yet Even As I Sleep Somewhere Between Saturn And Uranus, Wind-up Birds Everywhere Are Busy At Work Fulfilling Their Appointed Rounds.

Softball

Fun

Spring

It Doesn’t Matter How Old I Get, But As Long As I Continue To Live I’ll Always Discover Something New About Myself.

Long

Matter

Something New

Like Most Novelists, I Like To Do Exactly The Opposite Of What I'm Told. It's In My Nature As A Novelist. Novelists Can't Trust Anything They Haven't Seen With Their Own Eyes Or Touched With Their Own Hands.

Eye

Acceptance

Hands

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

Thinking

Enough

Ifs

Rousseau Defined Civilizations As When People Build Fences.

Civilization

People

Fence

Since I'm A Novelist I'm The Opposite Of You - I Believe That What's Most Important Is What Cannot Be Measured. I'm Not Denying Your Way Of Thinking, But The Greater Part Of People's Lives Consist Of Things That Are Unmeasurable, And Trying To Change All These To Something Measurable Is Realistically Impossible.

Believe

Thinking

Opposites

Loving Another Person Is A Wonderful Thing, And If That Love Is Sincere, No One Ends Up Tossed Into A Labyrinth. You Have To Have More Faith In Yourself.

Love Is

Labyrinth

Wonderful

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

Sometimes When I Think Of Life, I Feel Like A Piece Of Driftwood Washed Up On Shore.

Thinking

Pieces

Sometimes

All Imperfections Are Forced Upon The Imperfect, So The 'perfect' Can Live Content And Oblivious.

Perfect

Imperfection

Imperfect

Dreams Come From The Past, Not From The Future. Dreams Shouldn't Control You--you Should Control Them.

Dream

Past

Should

Most Young People Were Getting Jobs In Big Companies, Becoming Company Men. I Wanted To Be Individual.

Jobs

Men

People

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

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

Thinking

Done

Spaghetti

I'm Not Going To Get Involved In A Debate With You. Just Remember This: The Gods Give, And The Gods Take Away. Even If You Are Not Aware Of Having Been Granted What You Posses, The Gods Remember What They Gave You. They Don't Forget A Thing. You Should Use The Abilities You Have Been Granted With The Utmost Care.

Giving

Use

Care

Chance Encounters Are What Keep Us Going.

Life

Encounters

Chance

Be Fearless, Be Brave, Be Bold, Love Yourself

Love You

Brave

Fearless

You Know What Girls Are Like. They Turn Twenty Or Twenty-one And All Of A Sudden They Start Having These Concrete Ideas. They Get Super Realistic. And When That Happens, Everything That Seemed So Sweet And Lovable About Them Begins To Look Ordinary And Depressing.

Girl

Sweet

Depressing

To Sleep With A Woman: It Can Seem Of The Utmost Importance In Your Mind, Or Then Again It Can Seem Like Nothing Much At All. Which Only Goes To Say That There's Sex As Therapy (self-therapy, That Is) And There's Sex As Pastime.

Sex

Sleep

Self

When You Fall In Love, The Natural Thing To Do Is Give Yourself To It.

Falling In Love

Falling For You

Giving

A Poet Might Die At Twenty-one, A Revolutionary Or A Rock Star At Twenty Four. But After That You Assume Everything’s Going To Be All Right. You’ve Made It Past Dead Man’s Curve And You’re Out Of The Tunnel, Cruising Straight For Your Destination Down A Six Lane Highway Whether You Want It Or Not.

Stars

Past

Men

Some Things, You Know, If You Say Them, It Makes Them Not True?

Knows

Ifs

I Would Never See Her Again, Except In Memory. She Was Here, And Now She's Gone. There Is No Middle Ground. Probably Is A Word That You May Find South Of The Border. But Never, Ever West Of The Sun.

Memories

Gone

May

I Think Of Myself As More The Non-turn-on Type. So When I Do Get Turned On, I Don’t Trust It, I Have To Investigate The Source.

Thinking

Source

Type

Have You Ever Had That Feeling—that You’d Like To Go To A Whole Different Place And Become A Whole Different Self?

Self

Feelings

Different

I Used To Think The Years Would Go By In Order, That You Get Older One Year At A Time. But It's Not Like That. It Happens Overnight.

Thinking

Order

Years

Have Your Dream...what You Need Now More Than Anything Is Discipline. Cast Off Mere Words. Words Turn Into Stone. (from Thailand)

Dream

Discipline

Needs

There's No Sense Forcing Yourself If You Don't Feel Like It. Tell You The Truth, I've Had Sex With Lots Of Guys, But I Think I Did It Mostly Out Of Fear. I Was Scared Not To Have Somebody Putting His Arms Around Me, So I Could Never Say No. That's All. Nothing Good Ever Came Of Sex Like That. All It Does Is Grind Down The Meaning Of Life A Piece At A Time.

Sex

Fear

Thinking

It's My Motto For Life. 'walk Slowly; Drink Lots Of Water.

Water

Drink

Motto

Love Can Rebuild The World, They Say, So Everything's Possible When It Comes To Love.

World

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

War

Support

Principles

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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