Background Image

...

I’m Not Good At Talking,” Naoko Said. “haven’t Been For The Longest While. I Start To Say Something And The Wrong Words Come Out. Wrong Or Sometimes Completely Backward. I Try To Go Back And Correct It, But Things Get Even More Complicated And Confused, So That I Don’t Even Remember What I Started To Say In The First Place. Like I Was Split Into Two Or Something, One Half Chasing The Other. And There’s This Big Pillar In The Middle And They Go Chasing Each Other Around And Around It. The Other Me Always Latches Onto The Right Word And This Me Absolutely Never Catches Up

-Haruki Murakami

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I’m Not Good At

Haruki Murakami

...

I’m Not Good At Talking,” Naoko Said. “haven’t Been For The Longest While. I Start To Say Something And The Wrong Words Come Out. Wrong Or Sometimes Completely Backward. I Try To Go Back And Correct It, But Things Get Even More Complicated And Confused, So That I Don’t Even Remember What I Started To Say In The First Place. Like I Was Split Into Two Or Something, One Half Chasing The Other. And There’s This Big Pillar In The Middle And They Go Chasing Each Other Around And Around It. The Other Me Always Latches Onto The Right Word And This Me Absolutely Never Catches Up

Views: 9

Topic

More From Haruki Murakami

I Move, Therefore I Am.

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.

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

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.

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

Then When Dusk Began To Settle He Would Retrace His Steps, Back To His Own World. And On The Way Home, A Loneliness Would Always Claim His Heart. He Could Never Quite Get A Grip On What It Was. It Just Seemed That Whatever Lay Waiting "out There" Was All Too Vast, Too Overwhelming For Him To Possibly Ever Make A Dent In.

Whenever I Look At The Ocean, I Always Want To Talk To People, But When I'm Talking To People, I Always Want To Look At The Ocean.

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.

What's Really Important Here," I Whispered Loudly To Myself,"is Not The Big Things Other People Have Thought Up, But The Small Things You, Yourself Have

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

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

And It Was The Kind Of Thing That Loses The Most Important Nuances When Reduced To Words. He Had Never Told Anyone About It, And He Probably Never Would.

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

I Contented Myself With Whiskey, For Medicinal Purposes. It Helped Numb My Various Aches And Pains. Not That The Alcohol Actually Reduced The Pain; It Just Gave The Pain A Life Of Its Own, Apart From Mine.

Your Work Should Be An Act Of Love, Not A Marriage Of Convenience.

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

You Can’t Look Too Far Ahead. Do That And You’ll Lose Sight Of What You’re Doing And Stumble. I’m Not Saying You Should Focus Solely On The Details Right In Front Of You, Mind You. You’ve Got To Look Ahead A Bit Or Else You’ll Bump Into Something. You’ve Got To Conform To The Proper Order And At The Same Time Keep An Eye Out For What’s Ahead. That’s Critical, No Matter What You’re Doing.

Two People Can Sleep In The Same Bed And Still Be Alone When They Close Their Eyes

Many Are The Women Who Can Take Their Clothes Off Seductively, But Women Who Can Charm As They Dress?

In Japan, The Writers Have Made Up A Literary Community, A Circle, A Society. I Think 90 Percent Of Japan's Writers Live In Tokyo. Naturally, They Make A Community. There Are Groups And Customs, And So They Are Tied Up In A Way.

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.

Sometimes I Get Real Lonely Sleeping With You.

I Can't Understand Nothingness. I Can't Understand It And I Can't Imagine It.

Pain Is Inevitable. Suffering Is Optional. Say You’re Running And You Think, ‘man, This Hurts, I Can’t Take It Anymore. The ‘hurt’ Part Is An Unavoidable Reality, But Whether Or Not You Can Stand Anymore Is Up To The Runner Himself.

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

Any Explanation Or Logic That Explains Everything So Easily Has A Hidden Trap In It. I'm Speaking From Experience. Somebody Once Said If It's Something A Single Book Can Explain, It's Not Worth Having Explained. What I Mean Is Don't Leap To Any Conclusions.

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

Some People Can Work Their Butts Off And Never Get What They're Aiming For While Others Can Get It Without Any Effort At All.

I Don’t Know, I Don’t Feel Right Unless I’ve Got The Sea And Mountains Nearby. People Are Mostly A Product Of Where They Were Born And Raised. How You Think And Feel’s Always Linked To The Lay Of The Land, The Temperature. The Prevailing Winds, Even.

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

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.

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

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.

Every Day I Go To My Study And Sit At My Desk And Put The Computer On. At That Moment, I Have To Open The Door. It's A Big, Heavy Door. You Have To Go Into The Other Room. Metaphorically, Of Course. And You Have To Come Back To This Side Of The Room. And You Have To Shut The Door.

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

Was It Aristotle Who Said The Human Soul Is Composed Of Reason, Will, And Desire?” “no, That Was Plato. Aristotle And Plato Were As Different As Mel Tormé And Bing Crosby. In Any Case, Things Were A Lot Simpler In The Old Days,” Komatsu Said. “wouldn’t It Be Fun To Imagine Reason, Will, And Desire Engaged In A Fierce Debate Around A Table?

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.

I Go Back To The Reading Room, Where I Sink Down In The Sofa And Into The World Of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, Like A Movie Fadeout, The Real World Evaporates. I'm Alone, Inside The World Of The Story. My Favourite Feeling In The World.

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.

Time Expands, Then Contracts, All In Tune With The Stirrings Of The Heart.

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

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.

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

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.

Nights Without Work I Spend With Whisky And Books.

That's All I Think About These Days. Must Be Because I Have So Much Time To Kill Every Day. When You Don't Have Anything To Do, Your Thoughts Get Really, Really Far Out - So Far Out You Can't Follow Them All The Way To The End.

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's No Piece Of Cake, Mind You, But The Recipe's My Own To Fool With.

Sometimes When I'm With You, I Remember Things I Lost When I Was Your Age. Like I Remember The Sound Of The Rain And The Smell Of The Wind.

I Write My Novels Personally, Desperately And Non-negligently. When I Write My Novels, I Think About My Novels Only, And Never Do Other Works.

If They Invent A Car That Runs On Stupid Jokes, You Could Go Far.

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

For Me, Running Is Both Exercise And A Metaphor. Running Day After Day, Piling Up The Races, Bit By Bit I Raise The Bar, And By Clearing Each Level I Elevate Myself. At Least That’s Why I’ve Put In The Effort Day After Day: To Raise My Own Level. I’m No Great Runner, By Any Means. I’m At An Ordinary – Or Perhaps More Like Mediocre – Level. But That’s Not The Point. The Point Is Whether Or Not I Improved Over Yesterday. In Long-distance Running The Only Opponent You Have To Beat Is Yourself, The Way You Used To Be.

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

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

If There’s Something I Can’t Do But Want To, I Won’t Relax Until I’m Able To Do It.

I Have These Realistic Dreams And Snap Wide Awake In The Middle Of The Night. And For A While I Can't Work Out What's Real And What Isn't... That Kind Of Feeling. Do You Have Any Idea What I'm Saying?

The Thing I’m Most Afraid Of Is Me. Of Not Knowing What I’m Going To Do. Of Not Knowing What I’m Doing Right Now

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

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

Her Smile Steps Offstage For A Moment, Then Does An Encore, All While I'm Dealing With My Blushing Face.

I'll Be Happy If Running And I Can Grow Old Together.

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

I Think That My Job Is To Observe People And The World, And Not To Judge Them. I Always Hope To Position Myself Away From So-called Conclusions. I Would Like To Leave Everything Wide Open To All The Possibilities In The World.

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)

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.

Hatsumi Had A Pretty Good Idea That Nagasawa Was Sleeping Around, But She Never Complained To Him. She Was Seriously In Love With Him, But She Never Made Demands. 'i Don't Deserve A Girl Like Hatsumi,' Nagasawa Once Said To Me. I Had To Agree With Him.

Time Is Too Conceptual. Not That It Stops Us From Filling It In. So Much So, We Can't Even Tell Whether Our Experiences Belong To Time Or To The World Of Physical Things.

Physical Things

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

I Am 55 Years Old Now. It Takes Three Years To Write One Book. I Don't Know How Many Books I Will Be Able To Write Before I Die. It Is Like A Countdown. So With Each Book I Am Praying - Please Let Me Live Until I Am Finished.

An Expectation Was There, Mixed In With So Many Other Emotions - Excitement, Resignation, Hesitation, Confusion, Fear - That Would Well Up Then Wither On The Vine. You're Optimistic One Moment, Only To Be Racked The Next By The Certainty That It Will All Fall To Pieces. And In The End It Does.

Concentration Is One Of The Happiest Things In My Life.

Pointless Thinking Is Worse Than No Thinking At All.

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

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.

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

It Was A Small Room With Dim Light Coming In The Window, Reminiscent Of Old Polish Films.

We Fell Silent Again. The Thing We Had Shared Was Nothing More Than A Fragment Of Time That Had Died Longe Ago.even So, A Faint Glimmer Of That Warm Memory Still Claimed A Part Of My Heart. And When Death Claim Me, No Doubt I Would Walk Along By That Faint Light In The Brief Instant Before Being Flung Once Again Into The Abyss Of Nothingness

I Don't Think Jealousy Has Much Of A Connection With Real, Objective Conditions. Like If You're Fortunate You're Not Jealous, But If Life Hasn't Blessed You, You Are Jealous. Jealousy Doesn't Work That Way. It's More Like A Tumor Secretly Growing Inside Us That Gets Bigger And Bigger, Beyond All Reason. Even If You Find Out It's There, There's Nothing You Can Do To Stop It.

If You're In Pitch Blackness, All You Can Do Is Sit Tight Until Your Eyes Get Used To The Dark.

Who Can Really Distinguish Between The Sea And What's Reflected In It? Or Tell The Difference Between The Falling Rain And Loneliness?

I Realize Now That The Reality Of Things Is Not Something You Convey To People But Something You Make.

Math Is Like Water. It Has A Lot Of Difficult Theories, Of Course, But Its Basic Logic Is Very Simple. Just As Water Flows From High To Low Over The Shortest Possible Distance, Figures Can Only Flow In One Direction. You Just Have To Keep Your Eye On Them For The Route To Reveal Itself. That’s All It Takes. You Don’t Have To Do A Thing. Just Concentrate Your Attention And Keep Your Eyes Open, And The Figures Make Everything Clear To You. In This Whole, Wide World, The Only Thing That Treats Me So Kindly Is Math.

Don’t You See? You And He Might Never Cross Paths Again. Of Course, A Chance Meeting Could Occur, And I Hope It Happens. I Really Do, For Your Sake. But Realistically Speaking, You Have To See There’s A Huge Possibility You’ll Never Be Able To Meet Him Again. And Even If You Do Meet, He Might Already Be Married To Somebody Else. He Might Have Two Kids. Isn’t That So? And In That Case, You May Have To Live The Rest Of Your Life Alone, Never Being Joined With The One Person You Love In All The World. Don’t You Find That Scary?

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

I Find Myself Thinking About My Ongoing Existence As A Human Being And The Path That Lies Ahead Of Me. Though Of Course These Thoughts Lead To But One Place - Death.

I've Been Running A Full Marathon Every Year For More Than 20 Years, And My Record Is Getting Worse. Getting Older, Getting Worse. It's Natural.

A Deserted Library In The Morning - There's Something About It That Really Gets To Me. All Possible Words And Ideas Are There, Resting Peacefully.

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.

If I Stayed Here, Something Inside Me Would Be Lost Forever—something I Couldn't Afford To Lose. It Was Like A Vague Dream, A Burning, Unfulfilled Desire. The Kind Of Dream People Have Only When They're Seventeen.

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

Afraid Of Death

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

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.

If You Can’t Understand It Without An Explanation, You Can’t Understand It With An Explanation.

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

...i've Just Been Feeling Insecure Since I Was 20, And That's All I've Been Trying To Express. Now The Entire World Is Feeling Insecure.

Will You Wait For Me Forever?

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

I'm Not Human. I'm A Piece Of Machinery. I Don't Need To Feel A Thing. Just Forge On Ahead.

Where There Is Light, There Must Be Shadow, Where There Is Shadow There Must Be Light. There Is No Shadow Without Light And No Light Without Shadow.... We Do Not Know If The So-called Little People Are Good Or Evil. This Is, In A Sense, Something That Surpasses Our Understanding And Our Definitions. We Have Lived With Them Since Long, Long Ago-- From A Time Before Good And Evil Even Existed, When People's Minds Were Still Benighted.

Let Me Tell You Something, Mari. The Ground We Stand On Looks Solid Enough, But If Something Happens It Can Drop Right Out From Under You. And Once That Happens, You've Had It: Things'll Never Be The Same. All You Can Do Is Go On, Living Alone Down There In The Darkness.

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.

I Don't Really Know If It's The Right Thing To Do, Making New Life. Kids Grow Up, Generations Take Their Place. What Does It All Come To? More Hills Bulldozed And More Ocean Fronts Filled In? Faster Cars And More Cats Run Over? Who Needs It?

You Don’t Get It, Do You?" I Said. “it’s Not A Question Of ‘what Then’. Some People Get A Kick Out Of Reading Railroad Timetables And That’s All They Do All Day. Some People Make Huge Model Boats Out Of Matchsticks. So What’s Wrong If There Happens To Be One Guy In The World Who Enjoys Trying To Understand You?

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

Some Things In Life Are Too Complicated To Explain In Any Language.

Certain Kinds Of Knowledge Rob People Of Their Sleep.

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.

Irrepressible Curiosity Vied With An Instinctive Fear.

Mediocrity's Like A Spot On A Shirt—it Never Comes Off.

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

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

Was The Earth Put Here Just To Nourish Human Loneliness?

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

Deep Rivers Run Quiet.

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.

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.

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.

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

If We Reverse The Outer Shell And The Essence--in Other Words, Consider The Outer Shell The Essence And The Essence Only The Shell--our Lives Might Be A Whole Lot Easier To Understand.

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

This Is What It Means To Live On. When Granted Hope, A Person Uses It As Fuel, As A Guidepost To Life. It Is Impossible To Live Without Hope.

I'm Always Tripped Up By The Eternal Who Am I?

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

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.

I Think Certain Types Of Processes Don’t Allow For Any Variation. If You Have To Be Part Of That Process, All You Can Do Is Transform—or Perhaps Distort—yourself Through That Persistent Repetition, And Make That Process A Part Of Your Own Personality.

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.

Some Things Are Forgotten, Some Things Disappear, Some Things Die.

Kumiko And I Felt Something For Each Other From The Beginning. It Was Not One Of Those Strong, Impulsive Feelings That Can Hit Two People Like An Electric Shock When They First Meet, But Something Quieter And Gentler, Like Two Tiny Lights Traveling In Tandem Through A Vast Darkness And Drawing Imperceptibly Closer To Each Other As They Go. As Our Meetings Grew More Frequent, I Felt Not So Much That I Had Met Someone New As That I Had Chanced Upon A Dear Old Friend.

If You're Going To While Away The Years, It's Far Better To Live Them With Clear Goals And Fully Alive Then In A Fog, And I Believe #‎ Running Helps You To Do That. Exerting Yourself To The Fullest Within Your Individual Limits: That's The Essence Of Running, And A Metaphor For Life.

I Hurt Myself Deeply, Though At The Time I Had No Idea How Deeply. I Should Have Learned Many Things From That Experience, But When I Look Back On It, All I Gained Was One Single, Undeniable Fact. That Ultimately I Am A Person Who Can Do Evil. I Never Consciously Tried To Hurt Anyone, Yet Good Intentions Notwithstanding, When Necessity Demanded, I Could Become Completely Self-centred, Even Cruel. I Was The Kind Of Person Who Could, Using Some Plausible Excuse, Inflict On A Person I Cared For A Wound That Would Never Heal.

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.

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.

Life Is So Uncertain: You Never Know What Could Happen. One Way To Deal With That Is To Keep Your Pajamas Washed.

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

In Any Case, Suffice It To Say I Enjoyed Hearing About Faraway Places. I Had Stocked Up A Whole Store Of These Places, Like A Bear Getting Ready For Hibernation. I'd Close My Eyes, And Streets Would Materialize, Rows Of Houses Take Shape. I Could Hear People's Voices, Feel The Gentle, Steady Rhythm Of Their Lives, Those People So Distant, Whom I'd Probably Never Know.

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

He Does Not Exist Here, With Me, But Flesh That Does Not Exist Will Never Die, And Promises Unmade Are Never Broken.

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.

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.

When Someone Is Trying Very Hard To Get Something, They Don't. And When They're Running Away From Something As Hard As They Can, It Usually Catches Up With Them.

I May Not Be The Most Likable Person In The World, But I Try Not To Upset People.

With The Advent Of Winter, Her Eyes Seemed To Take On A Greater Transparency, A Transparency That Lead Nowhere. Occassionally, For No Particular Reason, Naoko Would Gaze Into My Eyes As If Searching For Something. Each Time I Was Filled With Odd Sensations Of Lonliness And Inadequecy.

We're Both Looking At The Same Moon, In The Same World. We're Connected To Reality By The Same Line. All I Have To Do Is Quietly Draw It Towards Me.

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

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.

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 Writer Has His Writing Technique - What He Can And Can't Do To Describe Something Like War Or History. I'm Not Good At Writing About Those Things, But I Try Because I Feel It Is Necessary To Write That Kind Of Thing.

Exhaustion Pays No Mind To Age Or Beauty. Like Rain And Earthquakes And Hail And Floods.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Become Like A Sheet Of Blotting Paper And Soak It All In. Later On You Can Figure Out What To Keep And What To Unload.

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

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

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.

I Have Read All My Novels That Were Translated Into English. Reading My Novels Is Enjoyable Because I Forget Almost All The Content In Them.

I'm Still Not Sure I Made The Right Choice When I Told My Wife About The Bakery Attack.but Then,it Might Not Have Been A Question Of Right Or Wrong. Which Is To Say That Wrong Choices Can Produce Right Results, And Vice Versa. I Myself Have Adopted The Position That,in Fact, We Never Choose Anything At All. Things Happen. Or Not.

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.

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

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.

It's Basically Impossible For Everybody's Justice To Prevail Or Everybody's Happiness To Triumph, So Chaos Takes Over.

Death Was Not The Opposite Of Life. It Was Already Here, Within My Being, It Had Always Been Here, And No Struggle Would Permit Me To Forget That.

What Do We Talk About? Just Ordinary Things. What Happened Today, Or Books We've Read, Or Tomorrow's Weather, You Know. Don't Tell Me You're Wondering If People Jump To Their Feet And Shout Stuff Like 'it'll Rain Tomorrow If A Polar Bear Eats The Stars Tonight!

You Said You're Going Far Away," Tamaru Said. "how Far Away Are We Talking About?" "it's A Distance That Can't Be Measured." "like The Distance That Separates One Person's Heart From Another's.

I Don't Care What You Do To Me, But I Don't Want You To Hurt Me. I've Had Enough Hurt Already In My Life. More Than Enough. Now I Want To Be Happy.

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

I'm Not Sure If I Could Tell The Difference—between Just Staring Into Space And Thinking. We're Usually Thinking All The Time, Aren't We? Not That We Live In Order To Think, But The Opposite Isn't True Either—that We Think In Order To Live. I Believe, Contrary To Descartes, That We Sometimes Think In Order Not To Be. Staring Into Space Might Unintentionally Have The Opposite Effect.

The Body Is Not The Only Target Of Rape. Violence Does Not Always Take A Visible Form, And Not All Wounds Gush Blood.

Holding This Soft, Small Living Creature In My Lap This Way, Though, And Seeing How It Slept With Complete Trust In Me, I Felt A Warm Rush In My Chest. I Put My Hand On The Cat's Chest And Felt His Heart Beating. The Pulse Was Faint And Fast, But His Heart, Like Mine, Was Ticking Off The Time Allotted To His Small Body With All The Restless Earnestness Of My Own.

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

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

The Answer Is Dreams. Dreaming On And On. Entering The World Of Dreams And Never Coming Out. Living In Dreams For The Rest Of Time.

My Imagination Is A Kind Of Animal. So What I Do Is Keep It Alive.

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

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

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.

Each Of Us Possesses A Tangible Living Soul. The System Has No Such Thing. We Must Not Allow The System To Exploit Us.

The Point Is, Not To Resist The Flow. You Go Up When You're Supposed To Go Up And Down When You're Supposed To Go Down. When You're Supposed To Go Up, Find The Highest Tower And Climb To The Top. When You're Supposed To Go Down, Find The Deepest Well And Go Down To The Bottom. When There's No Flow, Stay Still. If You Resist The Flow, Everything Dries Up. If Everything Dries Up, The World Is Darkness.

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

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

Not Just Beautiful, Though — The Stars Are Like The Trees In The Forest, Alive And Breathing. And They’re Watching Me. What I’ve Up Till Now, What I’m Going To Do — They Know It All. Nothing Gets Past Their Watchful Eyes. As I Sit There Under The Shining Night Sky, Again A Violent Fear Takes Hold Of Me. My Heart’s Pounding A Mile A Minute, And I Can Barely Breathe. All These Millions Of Stars Looking Down On Me, And I’ve Never Given Them More Than A Passing Thought Before. Not Just The Stars — How Many Other Things Haven’t I Noticed In The World, Things I Know Nothing About?

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.

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.

Although I Didn't Think So At The Time, Things Were A Lot Simpler In 1969. All You Had To Do To Express Yourself Was Throw Rocks At Riot Police. But With Today's Sophistication, Who's In A Position To Throw Rocks? Who's Going To Brave What Tear Gas? C'mon, That's The Way It Is. Everything Is Rigged, Tied Into That Massive Capital Web, And Beyond This Web There's Another Web. Nobody's Going Anywhere. You Throw A Rock And It'll Come Right Back At You.

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

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

Inside That Darkness, I Saw Rain Falling On The Sea. Rain Softly Falling On A Vast Sea, With No One There To See It. The Rain Strikes The Surface Of The Sea, Yet Even The Fish Don't Know It Is Raining.

It Seems To Me, Though, That You Always Understand Very Well What I Can't Say Very Well. Trouble Is I End Up Being Even Worse At Saying Things Well.

I Wasn't Particularly Afraid Of Death Itself. As Shakespeare Said, Die This Year And You Don't Have To Die The Next.

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.

So What’s Wrong If There Happens To Be One Guy In The World Who Enjoys Trying To Understand You?

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

I've Been Lonely For So Long. And I've Been Hurt So Deeply. If Only I Could Have Met You Again A Long Time Ago, Then I Wouldn't Have Had To Take All These Detours To Get Here.' Tengo Shook His Head. 'i Don't Think So. This Way Is Just Fine. This Is Exactly The Right Time. For Both Of Us. [...] We Needed That Much Time.... To Understand How Lonely We Really Were.

I’m The Kind Of Person Who Likes To Be By Himself. To Put A Finer Point On It, I’m The Type Of Person Who Doesn’t Find It Painful To Be Alone. I Find Spending An Hour Or Two Every Day Running Alone, Not Speaking To Anyone, As Well As Four Or Five Hours Alone At My Desk, To Be Neither Difficult Nor Boring. I’ve Had This Tendency Ever Since I Was Young, When, Given A Choice, I Much Preferred Reading Books On My Own Or Concentrating On Listening To Music Over Being With Someone Else. I Could Always Think Of Things To Do By Myself.

Ever Since Time Began (when Was That, I Wonder?), It's Been Moving Ever Forward Without A Moment's Rest. And One Of The Privileges Given To Those Who've Avoided Dying Young Is The Blessed Right To Grow Old.

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.

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

Trending Author

Maria Edgeworth

Charles Goodyear

Michelle Malkin

Category