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I'm In No Position To Hand Down Any Advice," He Said, "but There's A Rule I Follow When I Don't Know What To Do." "a Rule?" "if You Have To Choose Between Something That Has Form And Something That Doesn't, Go For The One Without Form. That's My Rule. Whenever I Run Into A Wall I Follow That Rule, And It Always Works Out. Even If It's Hard Going At The Time.

-Haruki Murakami

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I'm In No Position

Haruki Murakami

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I'm In No Position To Hand Down Any Advice," He Said, "but There's A Rule I Follow When I Don't Know What To Do." "a Rule?" "if You Have To Choose Between Something That Has Form And Something That Doesn't, Go For The One Without Form. That's My Rule. Whenever I Run Into A Wall I Follow That Rule, And It Always Works Out. Even If It's Hard Going At The Time.

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

Anyone Who Falls In Love Is Searching For The Missing Pieces Of Themselves. So Anyone Who's In Love Gets Sad When They Think Of Their Lover. It's Like Stepping Back Inside A Room You Have Fond Memories Of, One You Haven't Seen In A Long Time.

The Unwaking World Was As Hushed As A Deep Forest.

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.

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

If You Think About It, An Unfair Society Is A Society That Makes It Possible For You To Exploit Your Abilities To The Limit.

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

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.

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

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

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.

I Have No Idea! I Have Been Writing For 35 Years And From The Beginning Up To Now The Situation's Almost The Same. I'm Kind Of An Ugly Duckling. Always The Duckling, Never The Swan.

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

The Curious Thing About Individuals Is That Their Singularity Always Goes Beyond Any Category Or Generalization In The Book.

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.

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

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.

Two-thirds Of Earth's Surface Is Ocean, And All We Can See With The Naked Eye Is The Surface.

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

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.

I Was Reborn," She Said, Her Hot Breath Brushing His Ear. "you Were Reborn," Tengo Said. "because I Died Once." "you Died Once," Tengo Repeated. "on A Night When There Was A Cold Rain Falling," She Said. "why Did You Die?" "so I Would Be Reborn Like This." "you Would Be Reborn," Tengo Said. "more Or Less," She Whispered Quietly. "in All Sorts Of Forms.

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

But Even So, Every Now And Then I Would Feel A Violent Stab Of Loneliness. The Very Water I Drink, The Very Air I Breathe, Would Feel Like Long, Sharp Needles. The Pages Of A Book In My Hands Would Take On The Threatening Metallic Gleam Of Razor Blades. I Could Hear The Roots Of Loneliness Creeping Through Me When The World Was Hushed At Four O'clock In The Morning.

A Short Story I Have Written Long Ago Would Barge Into My House In The Middle Of The Night, Shake Me Awake And Shout, 'hey,this Is No Time For Sleeping! You Can't Forget Me, There's Still More To Write!' Impelled By That Voice, I Would Find Myself Writing A Novel. In This Sense, Too, My Short Stories And Novels Connect Inside Me In A Very Natural, Organic Way.

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.

Sometimes Taking Time Is Actually A Shortcut.

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

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

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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.

We Were, The Two Of Us, Still Fragmentary Beings, Just Beginning To Sense The Presence Of An Unexpected, To Be-aquired Reality That Would Fill Us And Make Us Whole.

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Intimate Relationships

I Think Most People Live In Fiction...that's How You Keep Your Fragile Body Intact.

But The Silence Spoke Volumes.

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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.

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

I Have A Million Things To Talk To You About. All I Want In This World Is You. I Want To See You And Talk. I Want The Two Of Us To Begin Everything From The Beginning.

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.

I'm An Average Person. Is Just That I Like Reading.

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I'll Never See Them Again. I Know That. And They Know That. And Knowing This, We Say Farewell.

Long Distance Relationship

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I'm A Writer, Not A Professional Runner. It's Fun And It Helps Me Write. I Need Powerful Concentration.

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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.

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

Were Meant To Be

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

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.

Cell Phones Are So Convenient That They're An Inconvenience.

We're All Kind Of Weird And Twisted And Drowning.

People Soon Get Tired Of Things That Aren't Boring, But Not Of What Is Boring.

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

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

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

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

Sometimes I Get Real Lonely Sleeping With You.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

When Microorganisms Die, They Make Oil; When Huge Timbers Fall, They Make Coal. But Everything Here Was Pure, Unadulterated Rubbish That Didn't Make Anything. Where Does A Busted Videodeck Get You?

Results Aside, The Ability To Have Complete Faith In Another Human Being Is One Of The Finest Qualities A Person Can Possess.

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.

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

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

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

Find Me Now. Before Someone Else Does.

Everybody Burns Out In This World; Amateur, Pro, It Doesn't Matter, They All Burn Out, They All Get Hurt, The Ok Guys And The Not-ok Guys Both. That's Why Everybody Takes Out A Little Insurance. I've Got Some Too, Here At The Bottom Of The Heap. That Way, You Manage To Survive If You Burn Out. If You're All By Yourself And Don't Belong Anywhere, You Go Down Once, And You're Out. Finished.

You Know What I Think?" She Says. "that People's Memories Are Maybe The Fuel They Burn To Stay Alive. Whether Those Memories Have Any Actual Importance Or Not, It Doesn't Matter As Far As The Maintenance Of Life Is Concerned. They're All Just Fuel. Advertising Fillers In The Newspaper, Philosophy Books, Dirty Pictures In A Magazine, A Bundle Of Ten-thousand-yen Bills: When You Feed 'em To The Fire, They're All Just Paper.

It's Because Of You When I'm In Bed In The Morning That I Can Wind My Spring And Tell Myself I Have To Live Another Good Day.

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.

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

Give Yourself Five Minutes To Consider How You Can Turn A Miserable Situation To Your Benefit And That Light Bulb Is Going To Click On.

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

Those Were Strange Days, Now That I Look Back At Them. In The Midst Of Life, Everything Revolved Around Death.

A Story Is Not Something Of This World. A Real Story Requires A Kind Of Magical Baptism To Link The World On This Side With The World On The Other Side.

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.

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

Passing Moments

Things Like That Happen All The Time In This Great Big World Of Ours. It's Like Taking A Boat Out On A Beautiful Lake On A Beautiful Day And Thinking Both The Sky And The Lake Are Beautiful. So Stop Eating Yourself Up Alive. Things Will Go Where They're Supposed To Go If You Just Let Them Take Their Natural Course.

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

Beyond The Window, Some Kind Of Small, Black Thing Shot Across The Sky. A Bird, Possibly. Or It Might Have Been Someone's Soul Being Blown To The Far Side Of The World.

The Best Point Of My Novels, I Think, Is Their Humor. I Want To Keep Many My Works Humorous.

The Most Important Thing We Learn At School Is The Fact That The Most Important Things Can't Be Learned At School.

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.

When You're Young, You Think You Can Handle Anything. By The Time You Find Out Otherwise, It's Already Too Late. You Got A Stocking Wrapped Around Your Neck.

Perhaps Most People In The World Aren’t Trying To Be Free, Kafka. They Just Think They Are. It’s All An Illusion. If They Really Were Set Free, Most People Would Be In A Real Pickle. You’d Better Remember That. People Actually Prefer Not Being Free?

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.

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

And Once The Storm Is Over, You Won’t Remember How You Made It Through, How You Managed To Survive. You Won’t Even Be Sure, Whether The Storm Is Really Over. But One Thing Is Certain. When You Come Out Of The Storm, You Won’t Be The Same Person Who Walked In. That’s What This Storm’s All About.

Time Really Is One Big Continuous Cloth, No? We Habitually Cut Out Pieces Of Time To Fit Us, So We Tend To Fool Ourselves Into Thinking That Time Is Our Size, But It Really Goes On And On.

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

You Know What I Should Do?" Hoshino Asked Excited. "of Course," The Cat Said. "what'd I Tell You? Cats Know Everything. Not Like Dogs.

According To Chekhov," Tamaru Said, Rising From His Chair, "once A Gun Appears In A Story, It Has To Be Fired." "meaning What?" "meaning, Don't Bring Unnecessary Props Into A Story. If A Pistol Appears, It Has To Be Fired At Some Point. Chekhov Liked To Write Stories That Did Away With All Useless Ornamentation.

Please Remember: Things Are Not What They Seem.

Things Are Not What They Seem

Everything, Everything Seemed Once-upon-a-time.

Once Upon A Time

Life Doesn't Require Ideals. It Requires Standards Of Action.

At Any Rate, That’s How I Started Running. Thirty Three—that’s How Old I Was Then. Still Young Enough, Though No Longer A Young Man. The Age That Jesus Christ Died. The Age That Scott Fitzgerald Started To Go Downhill. That Age May Be A Kind Of Crossroads In Life. That Was The Age When I Began My Life As A Runner, And It Was My Belated, But Real, Starting Point As A Novelist.

She Gave Me This Look – She Might Have Been Watching From A Lifeboat As The Ship Went Down. Or Maybe It Was The Other Way Around.

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

You Can Keep As Quiet As You Like, But One Of These Days Somebody Is Going To Find You.

Understanding Is But The Sum Of Misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding

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

Sometimes It's Not The People Who Change, It's The Mask That Falls Off.

Everybody Has Some One Thing They Do Not Want To Lose," Began The Man. "you Included. And We Are Professionals At Finding Out That Very Thing. Humans By Necessity Must Have A Midway Point Between Their Desires And Their Pride. Just As All Objects Must Have A Center Of Gravity. This Is Something We Can Pinpoint. Only When It Is Gone Do People Realize It Even Existed.

Painful Is The Stress When One Cannot Reproduce Or Convey Vividly To Others, However Hard He Tries, What He's Experienced So Intensely.

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

Reaching The Finish Line, Never Walking, And Enjoying The Race. These Three, In This Order, Are My Goals.

When It's All Over, It'll Seem Like A Dream.

You Said That The Mind Is Like The Wind But Perhaps It Is We Who Are Like The Wind Knowing Nothing, Simply Blowing Through. Never Aging, Never Dying.

Knowing Nothing

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

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.

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

I Never Trust People With No Appetite. It's Like They're Always Holding Something Back On You.

I Go By The Gut. I Might Not Appear To Have Any Talent But I've Got Plenty Of Gut Instinct.

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

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

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.

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.

What Gave Money Its True Meaning Was Its Dark-night Namelessness, Its Breathtaking Interchangeability.

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

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

Nothing So Consumes A Person As Meaningless Exertion

Once A Guy Starts Using A Wig, He Has To Keep Using One. It's, Like, His Fate. That's Why Wig Makers Make Such Huge Profits. I Hate To Say It, But They're Like Drug Dealers.

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

When You See Runners In Town Is Easy To Distinguish Beginners From Veterans. The Ones Panting Are Beginners; The Ones With Quiet, Measured Breathing Are The Veterans. Their Hearts, Lost In Thought, Slowly Tick Away Time. When We Pass Each Other On The Road, We Listen To The Rhythm Of Each Other's Breathing, And Sense The Way The Other Person Is Ticking Away The Moments.

It Feels Like Everything's Been Decided In Advance That I'm Following A Path Somebody Else Has Already Mapped Out For Me. It Doesn't Matter How Much I Think Things Over, How Much Effort I Put Into It. In Fact, The Harder I Try, The More I Lose My Sense Of Who I Am. It's Like My Identity's An Orbit That I've Strayed Far Away From, And That Really Hurts. But More Than That, It Scares Me. Just Thinking About It Makes Me Flinch.

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.

As A Novelist, You Could Say That I Am Dreaming While I Am Awake, And Every Day I Can Continue With Yesterday's Dream. Because It Is A Dream, There Are So Many Contradictions And I Have To Adjust Them To Make The Story Work. But, In Principle, The Original Dream Does Not Change.

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.

Good Style Happens In One Of Two Ways: The Writer Either Has An Inborn Talent Or Is Willing To Work Herself To Death To Get It.

Life: I'll Never Understand It.

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

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.

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

He Was Silent For Thirty Seconds, Maybe A Minute. I Uncrossed My Legs Under The Table And Wondered If This Was The Right Moment To Leave. It Was As If My Whole Life Revolved Around Trying To Judge The Right Point In A Conversation To Say Goodbye.

Constipation Was One Of The Things She Hated Most In The World, On Par With Despicable Men Who Commit Domestic Violence And Narrow-minded Religious Fundamentalists.

Domestic Violence

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.

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

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.

Not That Running Away's Going To Solve Everything. I Don't Want To Rain On Your Parade Or Anything, But I Wouldn't Count On Escaping This Place If I Were You. No Matter How Far You Run. Distance Might Not Solve Anything.

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.

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

People Want To Be Bowled Over By Something Special. Nine Times Out Of Ten You Might Strike Out, But That Tenth Time, That Peak Experience, Is What People Want. That's What Can Move The World. That's Art.

I'm In No Position To Hand Down Any Advice," He Said, "but There's A Rule I Follow When I Don't Know What To Do." "a Rule?" "if You Have To Choose Between Something That Has Form And Something That Doesn't, Go For The One Without Form. That's My Rule. Whenever I Run Into A Wall I Follow That Rule, And It Always Works Out. Even If It's Hard Going At The Time.

Being Active Every Day Makes It Easier To Hear That Inner Voice.

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

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

In Most Cases Learning Something Essential In Life Requires Physical Pain.

You Have To Make An Effort To Always Look At The Good Side, Always Think About The Good Things. Then You've Got Nothing To Be Afraid Of. If Something Bad Comes Up, You Do More Thinking At That Point.

This Was Something Sure To Be Crammed Full Of Warm Secrets, Like An Antique Clock Built When Peace Filled The World.

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.

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

Time Moves In It Special Way In The Middle Of The Night.

The Most Dangerous Creature Here Would Have To Be Me. So Maybe I'm Just Scared Of My Own Shadow.

It Occurred To Me What A Simple Thing Reality Is, How Easy It Is To Make It Work. It's Just Reality. Just Housework. Just A Home. Like Running A Simple Machine. Once You Learn To Run It, It's Just A Matter Of Repetition. You Push This Button And Pull That Lever. You Adjust A Gauge, Put On The Lid, Set The Timer. The Same Thing, Over And Over.

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

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?

I Laughed. “you’re Too Young To Be So … Pessimistic,” I Said, Using The English Word. “pessi-what?” “pessimistic. It Means Looking Only At The Dark Side Of Things.” “pessimistic … Pessimistic …” She Repeated The English To Herself Over And Over, And Then She Looked Up At Me With A Fierce Glare. “i’m Only Sixteen,” She Said, “and I Don’t Know Much About The World, But I Do Know One Thing For Sure. If I’m Pessimistic, Then The Adults In This World Who Are Not Pessimistic Are A Bunch Of Idiots.

One Listless Day Followed Another, With Nothing To Distinguish One From The Next. You Could Have Changed The Order And No One Would Have Noticed.

In A Sense, I'm The One Who Ruined Me: I Did It Myself.

My Peak? Would I Even Have One? I Hardly Had Had Anything You Could Call A Life. A Few Ripples, Some Rises And Falls. But That's It. Almost Nothing. Nothing Born Of Nothing. I'd Loved And Been Loved, But I Had Nothing To Show. It Was A Singularly Plain, Featureless Landscape. I Felt Like I Was In A Video Game. A Surrogate Pacman, Crunching Blindly Through A Labyrinth Of Dotted Lines. The Only Certainty Was My Death.

At Times Like This, Adults Need A Drink

Writing A Long Novel Is Like Survival Training. Physical Strength Is As Necessary As Artistic Sensitivity.

Everytime You See A Flood Like That On The News You Tell Yourself: That's It. That's My Heart.

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.

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.

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 Was Reduced To Pure Concept. My Flesh Had Dissolved; My Form Had Dissipated. I Floated In Space. Liberated Of My Corporeal Being, But Without Dispensation To Go Anywhere Else.i Was Adrift In The Void. Somewhere Across The Fine Line Separating Nightmare From Reality.

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

Passage Of Time

I Wrote My First Two Long Novels And An Anthology Of Short Narratives, When I Was A Manager Of My Own Jazz Bar. There Was Not Enough Time To Write And I Didn't Know How To Write Novels. Therefore, I Made Written Collages Of Aphorisms And Rags.

Her Cry Was The Saddest Sound Of Orgasm That I Had Ever Heard.

No Matter How Far You Travel, You Can Never Get Away From Yourself.

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

Where I Went In My Travels, It's Impossible For Me To Recall. I Remember The Sights And Sounds And Smells Clearly Enough, But The Names Of The Towns Are Gone, As Well As Any Sense Of The Order In Which I Traveled From Place To Place.

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John F. Kennedy

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