"i Guess I've Been Waiting So Long I'm Looking For Perfection. That Makes It Tough." "waiting For Perfect Love?" "no, Even I Know Better Than That. I'm Looking For Selfishness. Like, Say I Tell You I Want To Eat Strawberry Shortcake. And You Stop Everything You're Doing And Run Out And Buy It For Me. And You Come Back Out Of Breath And Get Down On Your Knees And Hold This Strawberry Shortcake Out To Me. And I Say I Don't Want It Anymore And Throw It Out The Window. That's What I'm Looking For."

-Haruki Murakami

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"i Guess I've Been

Haruki Murakami

Topic

Running

Perfect

Long

More From Haruki Murakami

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

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

Nobody Likes Being Alone That Much. I Don't Go Out Of My Way To Make Friends, That's All. It Just Leads To Disappointment.

Friendship

Lonely

Disappointment

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

Dream

Past

Should

There's An Essential Order You Have To Follow In Everything. It's A Way Of Showing Respect, Following Everything In The Correct Order.

Order

Essentials

Way

Killing Time Is Not An Easy Job.

Time

Jobs

Killing

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?

Dream

People

Training

People Sometimes Sneer At Those Who Run Every Day, Claiming They'll Go To Any Length To Live Longer. But Don't Think That's The Reason Most People Run. Most Runners Run Not Because They Want To Live Longer, But Because They Want To Live Life To The Fullest.

Running

Live Life

Thinking

Let Me Just Tell You This, Watanabe," Said Midori, Pressing Her Cheek Against My Neck. "i'm A Real, Live Girl, With Real, Live Blood Gushing Through My Veins. You're Holding Me In Your Arms And I'm Telling You That I Love You. I'm Ready To Do Anything You Tell Me To Do. I May Be A Little Bit Mad, But I'm A Good Girl, And Honest, And I Work Hard, I'm Kind Of Cute, I Have Nice Boobs, I'm A Good Cook, And My Father Left Me A Trust Fund. I Mean, I'm A Real Bargain, Don't You Think? If You Don't Take Me, I'll End Up Going Somewhere Else.

Cute

Girl

Father

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

I Miss You Terribly Sometimes, But In General I Go On Living With All The Energy I Can Muster. Just As You Take Care Of The Birds And The Fields Every Morning, Every Morning I Wind My Own Spring. I Give It Some 36 Good Twists By The Time I've Got Up, Brushed My Teeth, Shaved, Eaten Breakfast, Changed My Clothes, Left The Dorm, And Arrived At The University. I Tell Myself, "ok, Let's Make This Day Another Good One." I Hadn't Noticed Before, But They Tell Me I Talk To Myself A Lot These Days. Probably Mumbling To Myself While I Wind My Spring.

Morning

Spring

Wind

Our Responsibility Begins With Our Imagination.

Responsibility

Imagination

My Shadow Is Only Half Of What It Should Be." "everyone Has Their Shortcomings.

Shadow

Half

Should

There Are Some Things About Myself I Can’t Explain To Anyone. There Are Some Things I Don’t Understand At All. I Can’t Tell What I Think About Things Or What I’m After. I Don’t Know What My Strengths Are Or What I’m Supposed To Do About Them. But If I Start Thinking About These Things In Too Much Detail The Whole Thing Gets Scary. And If I Get Scared I Can Only Think About Myself. I Become Really Self-centered, And Without Meaning To, I Hurt People. So I’m Not Such A Wonderful Human Being.

Hurt

Thinking

Self

I've Never Met A Girl Who Thinks Like You." "a Lot Of People Tell Me That," She Said, Digging At A Cuticle. "but It's The Only Way I Know How To Think. Seriously. I'm Just Telling You What I Believe. It's Never Crossed My Mind That My Way Of Thinking Is Different From Other People's. I'm Not Trying To Be Different. But When I Speak Out Honestly, Everybody Thinks I'm Kidding Or Playacting. When That Happens, I Feel Like Everything Is Such A Pain!

Girl

Pain

Believe

Deep Rivers Run Quiet.

Running

Rivers

Quiet

What I Was Chasing In Circles Must Have Been The Tail Of The Darkness Inside Me.

Circles

Darkness

Tails

Each Individual Has Their Own Unique Color, Which Shines Faintly Around The Contours Of Their Body. Like A Halo. Or A Backlight. I'm Able To See Those Colors Clearly.

Unique

Color

Personality

What I'd Like To Be Is A Unique Writer Who's Different From Everybody Else. I Want To Be A Writer Who Tells Stories Unlike Other Writers'.

Unique

Different

Stories

This Person, This Self, This Me, Finally, Was Made Somewhere Else. Everything Had Come From Somewhere Else, And It Would All Go Somewhere Else. I Was Nothing But A Pathway For The Person Known As Me.

Self

Somewhere Else

Pathways

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

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

I Dream. Sometimes I Think That's The Only Right Thing To Do.

Inspiring

Dream

Thinking

When A Writer Develops A Story, He Is Confronted With A Poison That Is Inside Him. If You Don't Have That Poison, Your Story Will Be Boring And Uninspired. It's Like Fugu: The Flesh Of The Pufferfish Is Extremely Tasty, But The Roe, The Liver, The Heart Can Be Lethally Toxic.

Heart

Toxic

Poison

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

The Honour Of Physical Decline Is Waiting, And You Have To Get Used To That Reality.

Reality

Waiting

Used

No One Could Say How Long That Life Would Last. Whatever Has Form Can Disappear In An Instant.

Long

Lasts

Disappear

In Long-distance Running The Only Opponent You Have To Beat Is Yourself, The Way You Used To Be.

Running

Distance

Long

Be Fearless, Be Brave, Be Bold, Love Yourself

Love You

Brave

Fearless

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

Can'ttrustpeople. Won'tdoanygood. They'llkillyoueverytime. They'llkilleachother. They'llkilleveryone.

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

Moments

Wanted

Most Wanted

Learning Another Language Is Like Becoming Another Person.

Inspirational

Change

Learning

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

"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

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

Hope

World

Emptiness

But Knowing What I Don’t Want To Do Doesn’t Help Me Figure Out What I Do Want To Do. I Could Do Just About Anything If Somebody Made Me. But I Don’t Have An Image Of The One Thing I Really Want To Do. That’s My Problem Now. I Can’t Find The Image.

Knowing

Want

Helping

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

Like You're Riding A Train At Night Across Some Vast Plain, And You Catch A Glimpse Of A Tiny Light In A Window Of A Farmhouse. In An Instant It's Sucked Back Into The Darkness Behind And Vanishes. But If You Close Your Eyes, That Point Of Light Stays With You, Just Barely For A Few Moments.

Eye

Night

Light

Don't Tell Me Anymore. You Should Have Your Dream, As The Old Woman Told You To. I Understand How You Feel, But If You Put Those Feelings Into Words They Will Turn Into Lies. (from Thailand)

Dream

Lying

Should Have

It Is Sometimes Necessary For Each Person. Fill Up With Delicious Food, Get Drunk, Sing Loudly And Chat Frivolously.

Drunk

Sometimes

Delicious Food

Beyond The Edge Of The World There’s A Space Where Emptiness And Substance Neatly Overlap, Where Past And Future Form A Continuous, Endless Loop. And, Hovering About, There Are Signs No One Has Ever Read, Chords No One Has Ever Heard.

Past

Space

Substance

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.

Writing

People

Needs

In Real Life Things Don’t Go So Smoothly. At Certain Points In Our Lives, When We Really Need A Clear-cut Solution, The Person Who Knocks At Our Door Is, More Likely Than Not, A Messenger Bearing Bad News.

Real

Cutting

Doors

It's The Same With Menus And Men And Just About Anything Else: We Think We're Choosing Things For Ourselves, But In Fact We May Not Be Choosing Anything. It Could Be That Everthing's Being Decided In Advance And We Pretend We're Making Choices. Free Will May Be An Illusion. I Often Think That.

Men

Thinking

Choices

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

Jobs

Men

People

Narratives Have The Same Power, I Think. Some Readers Of My Novels Ask Me, "why Do You Understand Me?". That's A Huge Pleasure Of Mine Because It Means That Readers And I Can Make Our Narratives Relative.

Mean

Thinking

Narrative

Do You Know What ‘sputnik’ Means In Russian? ‘travelling Companion’. I Looked It Up In A Dictionary Not Long Ago. Kind Of A Strange Coincidence If You Think About It. I Wonder Why The Russians Gave Their Satellite That Strange Name. It’s Just A Poor Little Lump Of Metal, Spinning Around The Earth.

Mean

Thinking

Spinning Around

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

Men

Said

That's What We All Do: Endlessly Take The Long Way Around.

Long

Way

Long Way

She's Always Polite And Kind, But Her Words Lack The Kind Of Curiosity And Excitement You'd Normally Expect. Her True Feelings- Assuming Such Things Exist- Remain Hidden Away. Except For When A Practical Sort Of Decision Has To Be Made, She Never Gives Her Personal Opinion About Anything. She Seldom Talks About Herself, Instead Letting Others Talk, Nodding Warmly As She Listens. But Most People Start To Feel Vaguely Uneasy When Talking With Her, As If They Suspect They're Wasting Her Time, Trampling On Her Private, Graceful, Dignified World. And That Impression Is, For The Most Part, Correct.

Personal Opinions

Talking

People

My Only Passions Were Books And Music. As You Might Guess, I Led A Lonely Life… Not That I Knew What I Wanted In Life - I Didn’t. I Loved Reading Novels To Distraction, But Didn’t Write Well Enough To Be A Novelist; Being An Editor Or A Critic Was Out, Too, Since My Tastes Ran To The Extremes. Novels Should Be For Pure Personal Enjoyment, I Decided, Not Part Of Your Work Or Study. That’s Why I Didn’t Study Literature

Lonely

Book

Reading

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

Suicides? Heart Attacks? The Papers Didn't Seem Interested. The World Was Full Of Ways To Die, Too Many To Cover. Newsworthy Deaths Had To Be Exceptional. Most People Go Unobserved.

Suicide

Heart

People

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 World Would Be A Pretty Dull Place If It Were Made Up Only Of The First-rate, Right?

Would Be

World

Dull

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

World

Probably." "again With The Probablys." "a World Full Of Probablys," She Said.

World

Said

The Others In The Dorm Thought I Wanted To Be A Writer, Because I Was Always Alone With A Book, But I Had No Such Ambition. There Was Nothing I Wanted To Be.

Book

Ambition

Dorms

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

Strong

Independent

Reality

There Had To Be Something Wrong With My Life. I Should Have Been Born A Yugoslavian Shepherd Who Looked Up At The Big Dipper Every Night.

Peace

Night

Should Have

When There's Nothing To Do, You Do Nothing Slowly And Intently.

The Fresh Smell Of Coffee Soon Wafted Through The Apartment, The Smell That Separates Night From Day.

Coffee

Night

Smell

A State Of Chronic Powerlessness Eats Away At A Person

States

Persons

Aomame

I Didn't Start Running Because Somebody Asked Me To Become A Runner. Just Like I Didn't Become A Novelist Because Someone Asked Me To. One Day, Out Of The Blue, I Wanted To Write A Novel. And One Day, Out Of The Blue, I Started To Run-simply Because I Wanted To. I've Always Done Whatever I Felt Like Doing In Life. People May Try To Stop Me, And Convince Me I'm Wrong, But I Won't Change.

Running

Writing

Blue

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

Perfection

Fresh Start

Happens

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

Whenever I Get Into Something, I Shut Out Everything Else.

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.

Life

Goes On

Lasts

I Guess I Felt Attached To My Weakness. My Pain And Suffering Too. Summer Light, The Smell Of A Breeze, The Sound Of Cicadas - If I Like These Things, Why Should I Apologize?

Summer

Pain

Light

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

Thinking

Pieces

Sometimes

A Strange, Terrific Force Unlike Anything I've Ever Experienced Is Sprouting In My Heart, Taking Root There, Growing. Shut Up Behind My Rib Cage, My Warm Heart Expands And Contracts Independent Of My Will--over And Over.

Heart

Independent

Roots

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

I Began Running On An Everyday Basis After I Became A Writer. As Being A Writer Requires Sitting At A Desk For Hours A Day, Without Getting Some Exercise You'd Quickly Get Out Of Shape And Gain Weight, I Figured.

Running

Exercise

Everyday

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

Joy

May

Matter

Once You Let Yourself Grow Close To Someone, Cutting The Ties Could Be Painful.

Cutting

Ties

Painful

I Don’t Know What It Means To Live.

Mean

Knows

The Good Thing About Writing Book Is That You Can Dream While You Are Awake.

Dream

Book

Writing

Everybody's Born With Some Different Thing At The Core Of Their Existence. And That Thing, Whatever It Is, Becomes Like A Heat Source That Runs Each Person From The Inside. I Have One Too, Of Course. Like Everybody Else. But Sometimes It Gets Out Of Hand. It Swells Or Shrinks Inside Me, And It Shakes Me Up. What I'd Really Like To Do Is Find A Way To Communicate That Feeling To Another Person.

Running

Hands

Feelings

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

Mistake

Long

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

I Closed My Eyes And Listened Carefully For The Descendants Of Sputnik, Even Now Circling The Earth, Gravity Their Only Tie To The Planet. Lonely Metal Souls In The Unimpeded Darkness Of Space, They Meet, Pass Each Other, And Part, Never To Meet Again. No Words Passing Between Them. No Promises To Keep.

Lonely

Eye

Space

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

Inspirational

Book

Reading

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

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

How About Proust's In Search Of Lost Time?" Tamaru Asked. "if You've Never Read It This Would Be A Good Opportunity To Read The Whole Thing." "have You Read It?" "no, I Haven't Been In Jail, Or Had To Hide Out For A Long Time. Someone Once Said Unless You Have Those Kinds Of Opportunities, You Can't Read The Whole Of Proust.

Opportunity

Jail

Long

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

The Silence Grew Deeper, So Deep That If You Listened Carefully You Might Very Well Catch The Sound Of The Earth Revolving On Its Axis.

Axes

Silence

Sound

Understanding' Is Merely The Sum Total Of Our Misunderstandings.

Understanding

Misunderstanding

And It Came To Me Then. That We Were Wonderful Traveling Companions But In The End No More Than Lonely Lumps Of Metal In Their Own Separate Orbits. From Far Off They Look Like Beautiful Shooting Stars, But In Reality They're Nothing More Than Prisons, Where Each Of Us Is Locked Up Alone, Going Nowhere. 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.

Beautiful

Lonely

Stars

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

One Heart Is Not Connected To Another Through Harmony Alone. They Are, Instead, Linked Deeply Through Their Wounds

Heart

Harmony

Connected

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.

Spring

Snakes

Two

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

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

Were Meant To Be

Meant To Be

Spending Plenty Of Time On Something Can Be The Most Sophisticated Form Of Revenge.

Revenge

Sophisticated

Form

Why Do People Have To Be This Lonely? What's The Point Of It All? Millions Of People In This World, All Of Them Yearning, Looking To Others To Satisfy Them, Yet Isolating Themselves. Why? Was The Earth Put Here Just To Nourish Human Loneliness?

Life

Sad

Lonely

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

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.

Dream

Sleep

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

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

Stranger

Found

Teach

The Library Was Like A Second Home. Or Maybe More Like A Real Home, More Than The Place I Lived In. By Going Every Day I Got To Know All The Lady Librarians Who Worked There. They Knew My Name And Always Said Hi. I Was Painfully Shy, Though, And Could Barely Reply.

Real

Home

Names

I Had My Jazz Club And I Had Enough Money. So I Didn't Have To Write For My Living.

Writing

Clubs

Had Enough

I Tell You, Mr. Okada, A Cold Beer At The End Of The Day Is The Best Thing Life Has To Offer. Some Choosy People Say That A Too Cold Beer Doesn't Taste Good, But I Couldn't Disagree More. The First Beer Should Be So Cold You Can't Even Taste It. The Second One Should Be A Little Less Chilled, But I Want That First One To Be Like Ice. I Want It To Be So Cold My Temples Throb With Pain. This Is My Own Personal Preference Of Course.

Pain

Beer

Ice

Kindness And A Caring Mind Are Two Separate Qualities. Kindness Is Manners. It Is Superficial Custom, An Acquired Practice. Not So The Mind. The Mind Is Deeper, Stronger, And, I Believe, It Is Far More Inconstant.

Kindness

Believe

Caring

I Have Come To Think That Life Is A Far More Limited Thing Than Those In The Midst Of Its Maelstorm Realize. That Light Shines Into The Act Of Life For Only The Briefest Moment - Perhaps Only A Matter Of Seconds. Once It Is Gone And Failed To Grasp Its Offered Revelation, There Is No Second Chance. One May Have To Live The Rest Of One's Life In Hopeless Depth Of Loneliness And Remorse. In That Twilight World, One Can No Longer Look Forward To Anything. All That Such A Person Holds In His Hands Is The Withered Corpse Of What Should Have Been.

Loneliness

Twilight

Thinking

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

Dream

Dark

People

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

I Think I'll Stay Alive Here A Bit Longer, And See With My Own Eyes What's Going To Happen. I Can Still Die After That - It Won't Be Too Late. Probably.

Eye

Thinking

Too Late

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

A Man Is Like A Two-story House. The First Floor Is Equipped With An Entrance And A Living Room. On The Second Floor Is Every Family Member's Room. They Enjoy Listening To Music And Reading Books. On The First Underground Floor Is The Ruin Of People's Memories. The Room Filled With Darkness Is The Second Underground Floor.

Memories

Book

Reading

By Then Running Had Entered The Realm Of The Metaphysical. First There Came The Action Of Running, And Accompanying It There Was This Entity Known As Me. I Run; Therefore I Am.

Running

Firsts

Action

Maybe The Only Thing I Can Definitely Say About Is This: That’s Life. Maybe The Only Thing We Can Do Is Accept It, Without Really Knowing What’s Going On.

Knowing

Accepting

Can Do

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.

Hands

Ideas

Lust

That's Evolution. Evolution's Always Hard. Hard And Bleak. No Such Thing As Happy Evolution

Evolution

Bleak

Hard

I Spent Thirty-three Years In Another Man's Shadow. I Went Everywhere He Went, I Helped Him With Everything He Did. I Was In A Sense A Part Of Him. When You Live Like That For A Long Time, You Gradually Lose Track Of What It Is You Yourself Really Want Out Of Life

Men

Years

Long

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.

Eye

Coward

Ears

The Problem Was, I Think, That The Places I Fit In Were Always Falling Behind The Rimes.

Fall

Thinking

Problem

And Everywhere, Infinite Options, Infinite Possibilities. An Infinity, And At The Same Time, Zero. We Try To Scoop It All Up In Our Hands, And What We Get Is A Handful Of Zero. That's The City

Zero

Hands

Cities

How Many Sundays - How Many Hundreds Of Sundays Like This - Lay Ahead Of Me? “quiet, Peaceful, And Lonely,” I Said Aloud To Myself. On Sundays, I Didn't Wind My Spring.

Lonely

Spring

Sunday

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.

Hate

Book

Thinking

I Can Never Say What I Want To Say, It's Been Like This For A While Now. I Try To Say Something But All I Get Are Wrong Words - The Wrong Words Or The Exact Opposite Words From What I Mean. I Try To Correct Myself, And That Only Makes It Worse. I Lose Track Of What I Was Trying To Say To Begin With. It's Like I'm Split In Two And Playing Tag With Myself. One Half Is Chasing This Big, Fat Post. The Other Me Has The Right Words, But This Can't Catch Her.

Mean

Opposites

Two

Gays, Lesbians, Straights, Feminists, Fascist Pigs, Communists, Hare Krishnas - None Of Them Bother Me. I Don't Care What Banner They Raise. But What I Can't Stand Are Hollow People. When I'm With Them I Just Can't Bare It, And Wind Up Saying Things I Shouldn't.

Gay

Pigs

Wind

Such Wounds To The Heart Will Probably Never Heal. But We Cannot Simply Sit And Stare At Our Wounds Forever.

Heart

Forever

Staring

Among The Many Values In Life, I Appreciate Freedom Most.

Appreciate

Value Of Life

Values

No Matter How Much Suffering You Went Through, You Never Wanted To Let Go Of Those Memories.

Life

Letting Go

Memories

Perhaps I'm Just Too Painstaking A Type Of Person, But I Can't Grasp Much Of Anything Without Putting Down My Thoughts In Writing.

Writing

Type

My Thoughts

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

Water

Drink

Motto

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

Mirrors

Reflecting

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

Needs

Sometimes

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

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

At My Core, There Is Nothing. Neither Is It Parched Wastelands. At My Core, There Is Love. I'll Go On Loving That Ten-year-old Boy Named Tengo Forever --- His Strength, His Intelligence, His Kindness. He Does Not Exist Here, With Me, But Flesh That Does Not Exist Will Never Die, And Promises Unmade Are Never Broken.

Kindness

Boys

Years

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

I've Always Done Whatever I Felt Like Doing In Life. People May Try To Stop Me, And Convince Me I'm Wrong, But I Won't Change.

Running

People

Trying

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

Waiting

Tomorrow

I Closed My Eyes And Tried To Sleep. But It Was Not Until Much Later That I Was Able To Get Any Real Sleep. In A Place Far Away From Anyone Or Anywhere, I Drifted Off For A Moment.

Real

Sleep

Eye

Animals That Not Only Move By Their Own Free Will And Share Feelings With People But Also Possess Sight And Hearing Qualify As Deserving Of Names.

Moving

Animal

Sight

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

Ends

Stills

Dies

Don't Pointless Things Have A Place, Too, In This Far-from-perfect World?

Perfect

Sputnik

World

I Can't Imagine How American Readers Will React To A Novel, But If The Story Is Appealing It Doesn't Matter Much If You Don't Catch All The Detail. I'm Not Too Familiar With The Geography Of Nineteenth Century London, For Instance, But I Still Enjoy Reading Dickens.

Reading

Matter

Details

I Don't Know, There's Something About You. Say There's An Hourglass: The Sand's About To Run Out. Someone Like You Can Always Be Counted On To Turn The Thing Over.

Running

Like You

Sand

In Everybody’s Life There’s A Point Of No Return. And In A Very Few Cases, A Point Where You Can’t Go Forward Anymore. And When We Reach That Point, All We Can Do Is Quietly Accept The Fact. That’s How We Survive.

Life Lesson

Struggle

Return

"dance," Said The Sheep Man. "yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougotta Dance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, Yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, Wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, You'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, Nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou're Tired, Tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, Okay? Justdon'tletyourfeetstop."

Taking Crazy Things Seriously Is A Serious Waste Of Time.

Life

Crazy

Insanity

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

If I Used Being Busy As An Excuse Not To Run, I'd Never Run Again. I Have Only A Few Reasons To Keep On Running, And A Truckload Of Them To Quit.

Running

Quitting

Busy

Passion Can’t Sustain Itself Forever.

Passion

Forever

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

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

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

Most Things Are Forgotten Over Time. Even The War Itself, The Life-and-death Struggle People Went Through, Is Now Like Something From The Distant Past. We're So Caught Up In Our Everyday Lives That Events Of The Past, Like Ancient Stars That Have Burned Out, Are No Longer In Orbit Around Our Minds. There Are Just Too Many Things We Have To Think About Every Day, Too Many New Things We Have To Learn. New Styles, New Information, New Technology, New Terminology ... But Still, No Matter How Much Time Passes, No Matter What Takes Place In The Interim, There Are Some Things We Can Never Assign To Oblivion, Memories We Can Never Rub Away. They Remain With Us Forever, Like A Touchstone. And For Me, What Happened In The Woods That Day Is One Of These.

Memories

War

Struggle

If You Can Love Someone With Your Whole Heart, Even One Person, Then There's Salvation In Life. Even If You Can't Get Together With That Person.

Love

Life

Hope

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

These Days I Just Can't Seem To Say What I Mean [...]. I Just Can't. Every Time I Try To Say Something, It Misses The Point. Either That Or I End Up Saying The Opposite Of What I Mean. The More I Try To Get It Right The More Mixed Up It Gets. Sometimes I Can't Even Remember What I Was Trying To Say In The First Place. It's Like My Body's Split In Two And One Of Me Is Chasing The Other Me Around A Big Pillar. We're Running Circles Around It. The Other Me Has The Right Words, But I Can Never Catch Her.

Running

Mean

Opposites

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

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

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 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

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

If You're Young And Talented, It's Like You Have Wings.

Running

Wings

Talent

If You Think God’s There, He Is. If You Don’t, He Isn’t. And If That’s What God’s Like, I Wouldn’t Worry About It.

Atheist

Thinking

Worry

Adults Constantly Raise The Bar On Smart Children, Precisely Because They're Able To Handle It. The Children Get Overwhelmed By The Tasks In Front Of Them And Gradually Lose The Sort Of Openness And Sense Of Accomplishment They Innately Have. When They're Treated Like That, Children Start To Crawl Inside A Shell And Keep Everything Inside. It Takes A Lot Of Time And Effort To Get Them To Open Up Again. Kids' Hearts Are Malleable, But Once They Gel It's Hard To Get Them Back The Way They Were.

Children

Smart

Heart

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

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

Life

Ends

Turns

Of What Value Is A Civilization That Can't Toast A Piece Of Bread As Ordered?

Civilization

Pieces

Bread

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

Night

Strikes

Worst

Nobody's Easier To Fool, Than The Person Who Is Convinced That He Is Right.

Fool

Easier

Persons

Only People Who Have Been Discriminated Against Can Really Know How Much It Hurts. Each Person Feels The Pain In His Own Way, Each Has His Own Scars. So I Think I'm As Concerned About Fairness And Justice As Anybody. But What Disgusts Me Even More Are People Who Have No Imagination. The Kind T. S. Elliot Calls 'hollow Men'. People Who Fill Up That Lack Of Imagination With Heartless Bits Of Straw, Not Even Aware Of What They're Doing. Callous People Who Throw A Lot Of Empty Words At You, Trying To Force You To Do What You Don't Want To.

Hurt

Pain

Men

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

Life

Past

Shapes

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

In Dreams Begins Responsiblities.

Dream

This Is The Extent Of His Knowledge Of The Sea: It Was Very Big, It Was Salty, And Fish Lived There.

Sea

Bigs

Fishes

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.

Book

Intellectual

Window

There Was Just One Moon. That Familiar, Yellow, Solitary Moon. The Same Moon That Silently Floated Over Fields Of Pampas Grass, The Moon That Rose--a Gleaming, Round Saucer--over The Calm Surface Of Lakes, That Tranquilly Beamed Down On The Rooftops Of Fast-asleep Houses. The Same Moon That Brought The High Tide To Shore, That Softly Shone On The Fur Of Animals And Enveloped And Protected Travelers At Night. The Moon That, As A Crescent, Shaved Slivers From The Soul--or, As A New Moon, Silently Bathed The Earth In Its Own Loneliness. That Moon.

Loneliness

Animal

Moon

Judging The Mistakes Of Strangers Is An Easy Thing To Do - And It Feels Pretty Good.

Mistake

Judging

Stranger

If A Person Remains Tense For A Long Time He Might Not Notice It Himself, But It’s Like His Nerves Are A Piece Of Rubber That Has Been Stretched Out. It’s Hard To Go Back To The Original Shape.

Long

Nerves

Pieces

Reality's Just The Accumulation Of Ominous Prophecies Come To Life. All You Have To Do Is Open A Newspaper On Any Given Day To Weigh The Good News Versus The Bad News, And You'll See What I Mean.

Mean

Reality

News

People Have Their Own Reasons For Dying. It Might Look Simple, But It Never Is. It's Just Like A Rock. What's Above Ground Is Only A Small Part Of It. But If You Start Pulling, It Keeps Coming And Coming. The Human Mind Dwells Deep In Darkness. Only The Person Himself Knows The Real Reason, And Maybe Not Even Then.

Real

Simple

Rocks

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

Best Love

Falling In Love

People

Fairness Is A Concept That Holds Only In Limited Situations. Yet We Want The Concept To Extend To Everything, In And Out Of Phase. From Snails To Hardware Stores To Married Life. Maybe No One Finds It, Or Even Misses It, But Fairness Is Like Love. What Is Given Has Nothing To Do With What We Seek.

Like Love

Missing

Phases

My Biggest Faults Is That The Faults I Was Born With Grow Bigger Each Year. It's Like I Was Raising Chickens Inside Me. The Chickens Lay Eggs And The Eggs Hatch Into Other Chickens, Which Then Lay Eggs. Is This Any Way To Live A Life? What With All These Faults I've Got Going, I Have To Wonder. Sure, I Get By. But In The End, That's Not The Question, Is It?

Years

Eggs

Way To Live

Between The Time The Last Train Leaves And The First Train Arrives, The Place Changes: It's Not The Same As In Daytime.

Lasts

Firsts

Daytime

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

Reason

Middle

Efficient

It Depends On Which Reality You Take And Which Reality I Take.” (p. 318).

Reality

Depends

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

Honesty

Heart

World

What Makes Us The Most Normal," Said Reiko, "is Knowing That We're Not Normal.

Knowing

Normal

Said

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

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

Life Is Like A Box Of Cookies.

Life Is Like

Life Is

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.

Thinking

Giving

Want

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

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.

Fate

Storm

Adjusting

Time, Of Course, Topples Everyone In Its Path Equally- The Way That Driver Beats His Old Horse Until It Dies. But The Thrashing We Receive Is One Of Frightful Gentleness. Few Of Us Even Realize That We Are Being Beaten.

Horse

Way

Path

I Get Irritated, I Get Upset. Especially When I'm In A Hurry. But I See It All As Part Of Our Training. To Get Irritated Is To Lose Our Way In Life.

Way In Life

Upset

Training

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

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

Those Five Fingers And That Palm Were Like A Display Case Crammed Full Of Everything I Wanted To Know--and Everything I Had To Know. By Taking My Hand, She Showed Me What These Things Were. That Within The Real World, A Place Like This Existed. In The Space Of Those Ten Seconds I Became I Tiny Bird, Fluttering In The Air, The Wind Rushing By. From High In The Sky I Could See A Scene Far Away. It Was So Far Off I Couldn't Make It Out Clearly, Yet Something Was There, And I Knew That Someday I Would Travel To That Place.

Real

Air

Hands

What Do You Mean, 'playing Really Creatively'? Can You Give Me An Example?" "hmm, Let's See ... You Send The Music Deep Enough Into Your Heart So That It Makes Your Body Undergo A Kind Of A Physical Shift, And Simultaneously The Listener's Body Also Undergoes The Same Kind Of Physical Shift. It's Giving Birth To That Kind Of Shared State. Probably.

Heart

Mean

Giving

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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