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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.

-Haruki Murakami

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I Do Feel That

Haruki Murakami

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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.

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Sometimes 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.

It's Like A Kid Standing At The Window Watching The Rain.

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They Were Each Like A Mirror For The Other, Reflecting The Changes In Themselves.

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Memory Is Like Fiction; Or Else It's Fiction That's Like Memory.

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

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Pointless Things

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Imperfect World

When People Tell A Lie About Something, They Have To Make Up A Bunch Of Lies To Go With The First One. ‘mythomania’ Is The Word For It.

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There Weren't Any Curtains In The Windows, And The Books That Didn't Fit Into The Bookshelf Lay Piled On The Floor Like A Bunch Of Intellectual Refugees.

If She Did Experience Sex-or Something Close To It-in High School, I'm Sure It Would Have Been Less Out Of Sexual Desire Or Love Than Literary Curiosity.

It's True Though: Time Moves In Its Own Special Way In The Middle Of The Night," The Bartender Says, Loudly Striking A Book Match And Lighting A Cigarette. "you Can't Fight It.

For Me, Writing A Novel Is Like Having A Dream. Writing A Novel Lets Me Intentionally Dream While I'm Still Awake. I Can Continue Yesterday's Dream Today, Something You Can't Normally Do In Everyday Life.

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

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

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.

Of Course Life Frightens Me Sometimes. I Don't Happen To Take That As The Premise For Everything Else Though. I'm Going To Give It Hundred Percent And Go As Far As I Can. I'll Take What I Want And Leave What I Don't Want. That's How I Intend To Live My Life, And It Things Go Bad, I'll Stop And Reconsider At That Point. If You Think About It, An Unfair Society Is A Society That Makes It Possible For You To Exploit Your Abilities To The Limit.

This Was Never Any Place I Was Meant To Be. This Isn’t A Place For Me.

Were Meant To Be

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.

Sometimes We Don't Need Words. Rather, It's Words That Need Us. If We Were No Longer Here, Words Would Lose Their Whole Function. They Would End Up As Words That Are Never Spoken, And Words That Aren't Spoken Are No Longer Words. - (where I'm Likely To Find It)

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.

So This Was How Secrets Got Started, I Thought To Myself. People Constructed Them Little By Little.

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.

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.

It’s Precisely Because Of The Pain, The We Can Get The Feeling, Through This Process, Of Really Being Alive—or At Least A Partial Sense Of It.

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

That Was The Rule. Break One Of My Rules Once, And I’m Bound To Break Many More.

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.

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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.

Ordinary Imperfect People, Always Choose Similarly Imperfect People As Friends.

Still, In The End, We All Die Just The Same.

Our Hearts Are Not Stones. A Stone May Disintegrate In Time And Lose Its Outward Form. But Hearts Never Disintegrate. They Have No Outward Form, And Whether Good Or Evil, We Can Always Communicate Them To One Another.

Another Person's Life Is That Person's Life. You Can't Take Responsibility.

Taking Responsibility

When I Was Little, I Had This Science Book. There Was A Section On 'what Would Happen To The World If There Was No Friction?' Answer: 'everything On Earth Would Fly Into Space From The Centrifugal Force Of Revolution.' That Was My Mood.

Sitting On The Floor, I'd Replay The Past In My Head. Funny, That's All I Did, Day After Day After Day For Half A Year, And I Never Tired Of It. What I'd Been Through Seemed So Vast, With So Many Facets. Vast, But Real, Very Real, Which Was Why The Experience Persisted In Towering Before Me, Like A Monument Lit Up At Night. And The Thing Was, It Was A Monument To Me.

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

But The Silence Spoke Volumes.

When I'm Running I Don't Have To Talk To Anybody And Don't Have To Listen To Anybody. This Is A Part Of My Day I Can't Do Without.

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.

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

Knowledge And Ability Were Tools, Not Things To Show Off.

Colours Shone With Exceptional Clarity In The Rain. The Ground Was A Deep Black, The Pine Branches A Brilliant Green, The People Wrapped In Yellow Looking Like Special Spirits That Were Allowed To Wander Over The Earth On Rainy Mornings Only.

I'm The Kind Of Person Who Has To Totally Commit To Whatever I Do.

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

The Dead Will Always Be Dead, But We Have To Go On Living.

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.

People Lose Fifty Million Skin Cells Every Day. The Cells Get Scraped Off And Turn Into Invisible Dust, And Disappear Into The Air. Maybe We Are Nothing But Skin Cells As Far As The World Is Concerned.

I May Not Look It, But I Can Be A Very Patient Guy. And Killing Time Is One Of My Specialities.

When The Orbits Of These Two Satellites Of Ours Happened To Cross Paths, We Could Be Together. Maybe Even Open Our Hearts To Each Other. But That Was Only For The Briefest Moment. In The Next Instant We'd Be In Absolute Solitude. Until We Burned Up And Became Nothing.

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

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

Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?

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

End Of The World

I've Always Liked Libraries. They're Quiet And Full Of Books And Full Of Knowledge.

What A Terrible Thing It Is To Wound Someone You Really Care For And To Do It So Unconsciously.

No Matter What The Situation May Be, I Still Take Pleasure In Witnessing The Joy Of Others.

At Times Like This, Adults Need A Drink

You Always Look So Cool, Like No Matter What Happens, It’s Got Nothing To Do With You, But You’re Not Really Like That. In Your Own Way, You’re Out There Fighting As Hard As You Can, Even If Other People Can’t Tell By Looking At You.

Everything Passes. Nobody Gets Anything For Keeps. And That's How We've Got To Live.

Human Beings Are Ultimately Nothing But Carriers-passageways- For Genes. They Ride Us Into The Ground Like Racehorses From Generation To Generation. Genes Don't Think About What Constitutes Good Or Evil. They Don't Care Whether We Are Happy Or Unhappy. We're Just Means To An End For Them. The Only Thing They Think About Is What Is Most Efficient For Them.

Why Do I Act Like This, Agreeing When I Really Disagree, Letting People Force Me To Do Things I Don't Want To Do?

What If I’ve Forgotten The Most Important Thing? What If Somewhere Inside Me There Is A Dark Limbo Where All The Truly Important Memories Are Heaped And Slowly Turning Into Mud?...the Thought Fills Me With An Almost Unbearable Sorrow.

The Whole Terrible Fight Occured In The Area Of Imagination. That Is The Precise Location Of Our Battlefield. It Is There, That We Experience Our Victories And Defeats.

Victory And Defeat

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

The World In Books Seemed So Much More Alive To Me Than Anything Outside. I Could See Things I'd Never Seen Before. Books And Music Were My Best Friends. I Had A Couple Of Good Friends At School, But Never Met Anyone I Could Really Speak My Heart To. We'd Just Make Small Talk, Play Soccer Together. When Something Bothered Me, I Didn't Talk With Anyone About It. I Thought It Over All By Myself, Came To A Conclusion, And Took Action Alone. Not That I Really Felt Lonely. I Thought That's Just The Way Things Are. Human Beings, In The Final Analysis, Have To Survive On Their Own.

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.

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!

I Wasn't In Love With Her. And She Didn't Love Me. For Me The Question Of Love Was Irrelevant. What I Sought Was The Sense Of Being Tossed About By Some Raging, Savage Force, In The Midst Of Which Lay Something Absolutely Crucial. I Had No Idea What That Was. But I Wanted To Thrust My Hand Right Inside Her Body And Touch It, Whatever It Was.

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.

We All Die And Disappear, But That's Because The Mechanism Of The World Itself Is Built On Destruction And Loss.

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.

Deep Rivers Run Quiet.

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

Living Like An Empty Shell Is Not Really Living, No Matter How Many Years It May Go On. The Heart And Flesh Of An Empty Shell Give Birth To Nothing More Than The Life Of An Empty Shell.

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