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I Have Been Told I've Got A Darkish Personality. A Few Times." Takahashi Swings His Trombone Case From His Right Shoulder To His Left. Then He Says, "it's Not As If Our Lives Are Divided Simply Into Light And Dark. There's Shadowy Middle Ground. Recognizing And Understanding The Shadows Is What A Healthy Intelligence Does. And To Acquire A Healthy Intelligence Takes A Certain Amount Of Time And Effort. I Don't Think You Have A Particularly Dark Character.

-Haruki Murakami

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I Have Been Told

Haruki Murakami

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I Have Been Told I've Got A Darkish Personality. A Few Times." Takahashi Swings His Trombone Case From His Right Shoulder To His Left. Then He Says, "it's Not As If Our Lives Are Divided Simply Into Light And Dark. There's Shadowy Middle Ground. Recognizing And Understanding The Shadows Is What A Healthy Intelligence Does. And To Acquire A Healthy Intelligence Takes A Certain Amount Of Time And Effort. I Don't Think You Have A Particularly Dark Character.

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

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.

Sometimes, However, This Sense Of Isolation, Like Acid Spilling Out Of A Bottle, Can Unconsciously Eat Away At A Person’s Heart And Dissolve It.

No, I Don't Want Your Money. The World Moves Less By Money Than By What You Owe People And What They Owe You. I Don't Like To Owe Anybody Anything, So I Keep To Myself As Much On The Lending Side As I Can.

Even Castles In The Sky Can Do With A Fresh Coat Of Paint.

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 Love Pop Culture -- The Rolling Stones, The Doors, David Lynch, Things Like That. That's Why I Said I Don't Like Elitism.

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

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

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.

Lots Of Different Ways To Live And Lots Of Different Ways To Die. But In The End That Doesn't Make A Bit Of Difference. All That Remains Is A Desert.

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

Where Are You Now?’ Where Was I Now? Gripping The Receiver, I Raised My Hand And Turned To See What Lay Beyond The Telephone Booth. Where Was I Now? I Had No Idea. No Idea At All. Where Was This Place? All That Flashed Into My Eyes Were The Countless Shapes Of People Walking By To Nowhere. Again And Again, I Called Out For Midori From The Dead Center Of This Place That Was No Place.

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

You're Not A Kid Any More. You Have The Right To Choose Your Own Life. You Can Start Again. If You Want A Cat, All You Have To Do Is Choose A Life In Which You Can Have A Cat. It's Simple. It's Your Right.

When I Wake Up, My Pillow’s Cold And Damp With Tears. But Tears For What? I Have No Idea.

Okay, Let’s Put It This Way. I Would Like To Sleep With You. But It’s Alright If I Don’t Sleep With You. What I’m Saying Is I’d Like To Be As Fair As Possible. I Don’t Want To Force Anything On Anybody, Any More Than I’d Want Anything Forced On Me. It’s Enough That I Feel Your Presence Or See Your Commas Swirling Around Me.

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

She Waited For The Train To Pass. Then She Said, "i Sometimes Think That People’s Hearts Are Like Deep Wells. Nobody Knows What’s At The Bottom. All You Can Do Is Imagine By What Comes Floating To The Surface Every Once In A While.

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.

There's A Special Feeling You Get On A Veranda That You Just Can't Get Anywhere Else.

You Are Entering A Phase Of Your Life In Which Many Different Things Will Occur...bad Things That Seem Good At First And Good Things That Seem Bad At First.

Has The Dark Shadow Really Disappeared? Or Is It Inside Me, Concealed, Waiting For Its Chance To Reappear? Like A Clever Thief Hidden Inside A House, Breathing Quietly, Waiting Until Everyone’s Asleep. I Have Looked Deep Inside Myself, Trying To Detect Something That Might Be There. But Just As Our Consciousness Is A Maze, So Too Is Our Body. Everywhere You Turn There’s Darkness, And A Blind Spot. Everywhere You Find Silent Hints, Everywhere A Surprise Is Waiting For You.

The Light Of Morning Decomposes Everything.

"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?

She Curled Up And Pressed Her Cheek Against His Chest. Her Ear Was Right Above His Heart. She Was Listening To His Thoughts. "i Need To Know This," Aomame Said. "that We're In The Same World, Seeing The Same Things.

People's Memories Are Maybe The Fuel They Burn To Stay Alive.

Until The Bitter End, The Emptiness Inside Her Was Hers Alone.

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.

The Sun Sliced Through The Windshield, Sealing Me In Light. I Closed My Eyes And Felt The Warmth On My Eyelids. Sunlight Traveled A Long Distance To Reach This Planet; An Infinitesimal Portion Of That Sunlight Was Enough To Warm My Eyelids. I Was Moved. That Something As Insignificant As An Eyelid Had Its Place In The Workings On The Universe, That The Cosmic Order Did Not Overlook This Momentary Fact.

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

The Years Nineteen And Twenty Are A Crucial Stage In The Maturation Of Character, And If You Allow Yourself To Become Warped When You're That Age, It Will Cause You Pain When You're Older.

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

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

I Don't Go Out Of My Way To Make Friends, That's All.

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

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.

Life: I'll Never Understand It.

I Want To Write Stories That Are Different From The Ones I've Written So Far, Junpei Thought: I Want To Write About People Who Dream And Wait For The Night To End, Who Long For The Light So They Can Hold The Ones They Love. But Right Now I Have To Stay Here And Keep Watch Over This Woman And This Girl. I Will Never Let Anyone-not Anyone-try To Put Them Into That Crazy Box- Not Even If The Sky Should Fall Or The Earth Crack Open With A Roar.

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

Once, When I Was Younger, I Thought I Could Be Someone Else. I'd Move To Casablanca, Open A Bar, And I'd Meet Ingrid Bergman. Or More Realistically - Whether Actually More Realistic Or Not - I'd Tune In On A Better Life, Something More Suited To My True Self. Toward That End, I Had To Undergo Training. I Read The Greening Of America, And I Saw Easy Rider Three Times. But Like A Boat With A Twisted Rudder, I Kept Coming Back To The Same Place. I Wasn't Anywhere. I Was Myself, Waiting On The Shore For Me To Return.

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

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

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

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

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

Exerting Yourself To The Fullest Within Your Individual Limits: That's The Essence Of Running, And A Metaphor For Life

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

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

Were Meant To Be

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

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.

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.

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

Death Leaves Cans Of Shaving Cream Half-used.

Nothing So Consumes A Person As Meaningless Exertion

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.

I Learned That Realism Can Come In All Shapes And Sizes. The World Is Big Enough For Different Values To Coexist.

So I'm Not Crazy After All! I Thought It Looked Good Myself Once I Cut It All Off. Not One Guy Likes It, Though. They All Tell Me I Look Like A First Grader Or A Concentration Camp Survivor. What's This Thing That Guys Have For Girls With Long Hair? Fascists, The Whole Bunch Of Them! Why Do Guys All Think Girls With Long Hair Are The Classiest, The Sweetest, The Most Feminine? I Mean, I Myself Know At Least Two Hundred And Fifty Unclassy Girls With Long Hair. Really.

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

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

Passage Of Time

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

My Heart Would Swell Without Warning, And Tremble, And Lurch With A Stab Of Pain. I Would Try Clamping My Eyes Shut And Gritting My Teeth, And Waiting For It To Pass. And It Would Pass -- But Slowly, Taking Its Own Time, And Leaving A Dull Ache Behind.

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

Everyone May Be Ordinary, But They're Not Normal.

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

She Was Seriously In Love, But She Never Made Demands.

Strange And Mysterious Things, Though, Aren't They - Earthquakes? We Take It For Granted That The Earth Beneath Our Feet Is Solid And Stationary. We Even Talk About People Being 'down To Earth' Or Having Their Feet Firmly Planted On The Ground. But Suddenly One Day We See That It Isn't True. The Earth, The Boulders, That Are Supposed To Be Solid, All Of A Sudden Turn As Mushy As Liquid - From The Short Story "thailand

Mysterious Things

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.

In His Or Her Own Way, Everyone I Saw Before Me Looked Happy. Whether They Were Really Happy Or Just Looked It, I Couldn't Tell. But They Did Look Happy On This Pleasant Early Afternoon In Late September, And Because Of That I Felt A Kind Of Loneliness New To Me, As If I Were The Only One Here Who Was Not Truly Part Of The Scene.

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

I Stare At Her Chest. As She Breathes, The Rounded Peaks Move Up And Down Like The Swell Of Waves, Somehow Reminding Me Of Rain Falling Softly On A Broad Stretch Of Sea. I'm The Lonely Voyager Standing On Deck, And She's The Sea. The Sky Is A Blanket Of Gray, Merging With The Gray Sea Off On The Horizon. It's Hard To Tell The Difference Between Sea And Sky. Between Voyager And Sea. Between Reality And The Workings Of The Heart.

Tell Me, Doctor, Are You Afraid Of Death?" "i Guess It Depends On How You Die.

Afraid Of Death

You Like To Write. It's The Single Most Important Quality For Someone Who Wants To Be A Writer. But Not In Itself Enough.

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

I Don't Know How Many Good Books I Still Have In Me; I Hope There Are Another Four Or Five.

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

I Think History Is Collective Memories. In Writing, I'm Using My Own Memory, And I'm Using My Collective Memory.

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

"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."

The House Kept Its Own Time, Like The Old-fashioned Grandfather Clock In The Living Room. People Who Happened By Raised The Weights, And As Long As The Weights Were Wound, The Clock Continued Ticking Away. But With People Gone And The Weights Unattended, Whole Chunks Of Time Were Left To Collect In Deposits Of Faded Life On The Floor.

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.

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.

Ever Since That Happened To Me, I Haven't Been Able To Give Myself To Anyone In This World.

The Unwaking World Was As Hushed As A Deep Forest.

A Certain Kind Of Shittiness, A Certain Kind Of Stagnation, A Certain Kind Of Darkness, Goes On Propagating Itself By Its Own Power In Its Own Self-contained Cycle. And Once It Passes A Certain Point, No One Can Stop It-even If The Person Himself Wants To Stop It.

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

We Each Have A Special Something We Can Get Only At A Special Time Of Our Life. Like A Small Flame. A Careful, Fortunate Few Cherish That Flame, Nurture It, Hold It As A Torch To Light Their Way. But Once That Flame Goes Out, It’s Gone Forever.

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

What You See With Your Eyes Is Not Necessarily Real.

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.

It's Just Like Yeats Said. In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. Flip This Around And You Could Say That Where There's No Power To Imagine, No Responsibility Can Arise.

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.

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

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

Mental Acuity Was Never Born From Comfortable Circumstances.

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.

You Make Do With What You Have. As You Age You Learn Even To Be Happy With What You Have.

The Ones With No Imagination Are Always The Quickest To Justify Themselves.

But Still," Ayumi Said, "it Seems To Me That This World Has A Serious Shortage Of Both Logic And Kindness." "you May Be Right," Aomame Said, "but It's Too Late To Trade It In For Another One.

Once Thing Goes Wrong, Then The Whole House Of Cards Collapses. And There's No Way You Can Extricate Yourself. Until Someone Comes Along To Drag You Out.

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.

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

You Mean Machines Are Like Humans?" I Shook My Head. "no, Not Like Humans. With Machines The Feeling Is, Well, More Finite. It Doesn't Go Any Further. With Humans It's Different. The Feeling Is Always Changing. Like If You Love Somebody, The Love Is Always Shifting Or Wavering. It's Always Questioning Or Inflating Or Disappearing Or Denying Or Hurting. And The Thing Is, You Can't Do Anything About It, You Can't Control It. With My Subaru, It's Not So Complicated.

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

What We See Before Us Is Just One Tiny Part Of The World. We Get In The Habit Of Thinking, This Is The World, But That's Not True At All. The Real World Is A Much Darker And Deeper Place Than This, And Much Of It Is Occupied By Jellyfish And Things.

That's Wrong," She Declared. "everyone Must Have One Thing That They Can Excel At. It's Just A Matter Of Drawing It Out, Isn't It? But School Doesn't Know How To Draw It Out. It Crushes The Gift. It's No Wonder Most People Never Get To Be What They Want To Be. They Just Get Ground Down.

Understanding' Is Merely The Sum Total Of Our Misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding

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.

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

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

Love With Complications. Scenery Was The Last Thing On My Mind.

With Each Passing Moment I'm Becoming Part Of The Past. There Is No Future For Me, Just The Past Steadily Accumulating.

Passing Moments

I'm A Very Ordinary Human Being; I Just Happen To Like Reading Books.

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.

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.

Things May Look Different To You Than They Did Before. I've Had That Experience Myself. But Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Only One Reality.

My Arm Was Not What She Needed, But The Arm Of Someone Else. My Warmth Was Not What She Needed, But The Warmth Of Someone Else.

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

End Of The World

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

Possibilities Are Like Cancer. The More I Think About Them, The More They Multiply, And There's No Way To Stop Them. I'm Out Of Control.

Everything In Life Is A Metaphor.

Things Pass Us By. Nobody Can Catch Them. That's The Way We Live Our Lives.

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

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

You Know, They've Got These Chocolate Assortments, And You Like Some But You Don't Like Others? And You Eat All The Ones You Like, And The Only Ones Left Are The Ones You Don't Like As Much? I Always Think About That When Something Painful Comes Up. Now I Just Have To Polish These Off, And Everything'll Be Ok. Life Is A Box Of Chocolates. I Suppose You Could Call It A Philosophy.

Whenever An Occasion Arose In Which She Needed An Opinion On Something In The Wider World, She Borrowed Her Husband's. If This Had Been All There Was To Her, She Wouldn't Have Bothered Anyone, But As Is So Often The Case With Such Women, She Suffered From An Incurable Case Of Of Pretentiousness. Lacking Any Internalized Values Of Her Own, Such People Can Arrive At A Standpoint Only By Adopting Other People's Standards Or Views. The Only Principle That Governs Their Minds Is The Question "how Do I Look?

We Knew Exactly What We Wanted In Each Other. And Even So, It Ended. One Day It Stopped, As If The Film Simply Slipped Off The Reel.

Was The Earth Put Here Just To Nourish Human Loneliness?

I Was Dying. Like All The Other People Who Live In This World.

I'm Going To Take You Out Of Here ... I'm Going To Take You Home, To The World Where You Belong, Where Cats With Bent Tails Live, And There Are Little Backyards, And Alarm Clocks Ring In The Morning.

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

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

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

Mountains, According To The Angle Of View, The Season, The Time Of Day, The Beholder's Frame Of Mind, Or Any One Thing, Can Effectively Change Their Appearance. Thus, It Is Essential To Recognize That We Can Never Know More Than One Side, One Small Aspect Of A Mountain.

Hey, What Is It With You? Why Are You So Spaced Out? You Still Haven't Answered Me." I Probably Still Haven't Completely Adapted To The World," I Said After Giving It Some Thought. "i Don't Know, I Feel Like This Isn't The Real World. The People, The Scene: They Just Don't Seem Real To Me." Midori Rested An Elbow On The Bar And Looked At Me. "there Was Something Like That In A Jim Morrison Song, I'm Pretty Sure." People Are Strange When You're A Stranger.

Loneliness Becomes An Acid That Eats Away At You.

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.

What Was Lost Was Lost. There Was No Retrieving It, However You Schemed, No Returning To How Things Were, No Going Back.

I'm Tired Of Living Unable To Love Anyone. I Don't Have A Single Friend - Not One. And, Worst Of All, I Can't Even Love Myself. Why Is That? Why Can't I Love Myself? It's Because I Can't Love Anyone Else. A Person Learns How To Love Himself Through The Simple Acts Of Loving And Being Loved By Someone Else. Do You Understand What I Am Saying? A Person Who Is Incapable Of Loving Another Cannot Properly Love Himself.

Of Course It Hurt That We Could Never Love Each Other In A Physical Way. We Would Have Been Far More Happy If We Had. But That Was Like The Tides, The Change Of Seasons--something Immutable, An Immovable Destiny We Could Never Alter. No Matter How Cleverly We Might Shelter It, Our Delicate Friendship Wasn't Going To Last Forever. We Were Bound To Reach A Dead End. That Was Painfully Clear.

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

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

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

As Long As An Individual's Alive, He Will Undergo Experience In Some Form Or Other, And Those Experiences Are Stored Up Instant By Instant. To Stop Experiencin' Is To Die.

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.

Never Trust A Man Who Carries A Handkerchief, I Always Say. One Of Many Prejudicial Rules Of Thumb.

When I Write A Novel I Put Into Play All The Information Inside Me. It Might Be Japanese Information Or It Might Be Western; I Don't Draw A Distinction Between The Two.

You're Wrong. The Mind Is Not Like Raindrops. It Does Not Fall From The Skies, It Does Not Lose Itself Among Other Things. If You Believe In Me At All, Then Believe This: I Promise You I Will Find It. Everything Depends On This." "i Believe You," She Whispers After A Moment. "please Find My Mind.

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.

Pointless Thinking Is Worse Than No Thinking At All.

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

I May Be The Type Who Manages To Grab All The Pointless Things In Life But Lets The Really Important Things Slip Away.

I Move, Therefore I Am.

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

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

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.

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

But The Silence Spoke Volumes.

At The Entrance To The Original Tower, There Is A Stone Into Which Jung Carved Some Words With His Own Hand: 'cold Or Not, God Is Present.

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

Our Responsibility Begins With Our Imagination.

It Made Her Think Of Laika, The Dog. The Man-made Satellite Streaking Soundlessly Across The Blackness Of Outer Space. The Dark, Lustrous Eyes Of The Dog Gazing Out The Tiny Window. In The Infinite Loneliness Of Space, What Could The Dog Possibly Be Looking At?

I Have Been Told I've Got A Darkish Personality. A Few Times." Takahashi Swings His Trombone Case From His Right Shoulder To His Left. Then He Says, "it's Not As If Our Lives Are Divided Simply Into Light And Dark. There's Shadowy Middle Ground. Recognizing And Understanding The Shadows Is What A Healthy Intelligence Does. And To Acquire A Healthy Intelligence Takes A Certain Amount Of Time And Effort. I Don't Think You Have A Particularly Dark Character.

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.

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.

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.

I'm Not A Fast Thinker, But Once I Am Interested In Something, I Am Doing It For Many Years.

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

Gazing At The Rain, I Consider What It Means To Belong, To Become Part Of Something. To Have Someone Cry For Me.

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

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

It Seems To Me That Very Sad Things Always Contain An Element Of The Comical

She Was Truly A Beautiful Girl. I Could Feel A Small Polished Stone Sinking Through The Darkest Waters Of My Heart. All Those Deep Convoluted Channels And Passageways, And Yet She Managed To Toss Her Pebble Right Down To The Bottom Of It All.

Passion Can’t Sustain Itself Forever.

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

Falling In Love

Falling For You

[...] Shimamoto Had Her Own Little World Within Her. A World That Was For Her Alone, One I Could Not Enter.

Each Person Feels Pain In His Own Way, Each Has His Own Scars.

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

For A Long Time, She Held A Special Place In My Heart. I Kept This Special Place Just For Her, Like A "reserved" Sign On A Quiet Corner Table In A Restaurant. Despite The Fact That I Was Sure I'd Never See Her Again.

A Friend To Kill Time Is A Friend Sublime.

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

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

With Luck, It Might Even Snow For Us.

Autumn Finally Arrived. And When It Did, I Came To A Decision. Something Had To Give: I Couldn't Keep On Living Like This.

Whoa!" He Says With A Smile. The Wrinkles At The Corners Of His Eyes Deepen. "chicken Salad A La George Orwell!

Reading Was Like An Addiction; I Read While I Ate, On The Train, In Bed Until Late At Night, In School, Where I'd Keep The Book Hidden So I Could Read During Class. Before Long I Bought A Small Stereo And Spent All My Time In My Room, Listening To Jazz Records. But I Had Almost No Desire To Talk To Anyone About The Experience I Gained Through Books And Music. I Felt Happy Just Being Me And No One Else. In That Sense I Could Be Called A Stack-up Loner.

It's Hard To Tell The Difference Between Sea And Sky, Between Voyager And Sea. Between Reality And The Workings Of The Heart.

I Think Of Rivers, Of Tides. Forests And Water Gushing Out. Rain And Lightning. Rocks And Shadows. All Of These Are In Me.

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.

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

Death Is Not The Opposite Of Life, But A Part Of It.

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

You End Up Exhausted And Spent, But Later, In Retrospect, You Realize What It All Was For. The Parts Fall Into Place, And You Can See The Whole Picture And Finally Understand The Role Each Individual Part Plays. The Dawn Comes, The Sky Grows Light, And The Colors And Shapes Of The Roofs Of Houses, Which You Could Only Glimpse Vaguely Before, Come Into Focus.

Since I Have Come To America, I Am Often Asked Whether My Next Novel Will Be Set In America. I Don't Think It Will. I Think I Will Be Living In America For Some Time To Come, But While Living In America, I Would Like To Write About Japanese Society From The Outside.

Not To Excuse Myself, But When You Have People Right In Front Of You Denying Your Very Presence Like That, Then See If You Don't Doubt Whether You Actually Exist. I Look At My Hands Half Expecting To See Clear Through Them.

Sometimes I Get Real Lonely Sleeping With You.

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

No Matter How Honestly You Open Up To Someone, There Are Still Things You Cannot Reveal.

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

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.

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