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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

-Haruki Murakami

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I Spent Thirty-three Years

Haruki Murakami

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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

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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.

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End Of The World

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

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.

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

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.

A Certain Type Of Perfection Can Only Be Realized Through A Limitless Accumulation Of The Imperfect.

The Heavy Smell Of Flower Petals Stroked The Walls Of My Lungs.

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

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.

Ice Contains No Future , Just The Past, Sealed Away. As If They're Alive, Everything In The World Is Sealed Up Inside, Clear And Distinct. Ice Can Preserve All Kinds Of Things That Way- Cleanly, Clearly. That's The Essence Of Ice, The Role It Plays.

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.

I Want To Believe You, But If That's True, I Just Don't Get It. Why Does Loving Somebody Mean You Have To Hurt Them Just As Much? I Mean, If That's The Way It Goes, What's The Point Of Loving Someone?

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

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

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Inside Him, Twenty Years Dissolved And Mixed Into One Complex, Swirling Whole. Everything That Had Accumulated Over The Years-- All He Had Seen, All The Words He Has Spoken, All The Values He Had Held-- All Of It Coalesced Into One Solid, Thick Pillar In His Heart, The Core Of Which Was Spinning Like A Potter's Wheel. Wordlessly, Tengo Observed The Scene, As If Watching The Destruction And Rebirth Of A Planet.

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Afraid Of Death

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Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Always Only One Reality!

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

Not Everything Was Lost In The Flow Of Time

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?

I Want You Always To Remember Me. Will You Remember That I Existed, And That I Stood Next To You Here Like This?

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.

Thinking About Spaghetti That Boils Eternally But Is Never Done Is A Sad, Sad Thing.

I Didn't Want To Be A Writer, But I Became One. And Now I Have Many Readers, In Many Countries. I Think That's A Miracle. So I Think I Have To Be Humble Regarding This Ability. I'm Proud Of It And I Enjoy It, And It Is Strange To Say It This Way, But I Respect It.

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

If You Try To Use Your Head To Think About Things, People Don't Want To Have Anything To Do With You

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.

I’m Me, And At The Same Time Not Me. That’s What It Felt Like. A Very Still, Quiet Feeling.

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

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

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.

Listen - God Only Exists In People's Minds. Especially In Japan, God's Always Been Kind Of A Flexible Concept. Look At What Happened After The War. Douglas Macarthur Ordered The Divine Emperor To Quit Being God, And He Did, Making A Speech Saying He Was Just An Ordinary Person. So After 1946 He Wasn't God Anymore. That's What Japanese Gods Are Like--they Can Be Tweaked And Adjusted. Some American Comping On A Cheap Pipe Gives The Order And Presto Change-o--god's No Longer God. A Very Postmodern Kind Of Thing. If You Think God's There, He Is. If You Don't, He Isn't.

Certain Kinds Of Knowledge Rob People Of Their Sleep.

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

Most People Are Not Looking For Provable Truths. As You Said, Truth Is Often Accompanied By Intense Pain, And Almost No One Is Looking For Painful Truths. What People Need Is Beautiful, Comforting Stories That Make Them Feel As If Their Lives Have Some Meaning. Which Is Where Religion Comes From.

It Is Hard To Be An Individual In Japan.

I’ve Never Once Thought About How I Was Going To Die,” She Said. “i Can’t Think About It. I Don’t Even Know How I’m Going To Live.

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

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

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

When I First Met You, I Felt A Kind Of Contradiction In You. You’re Seeking Something, But At The Same Time, You Are Running Away For All You’re Worth.

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

Confidence; As A Teenager? Because I Knew What I Loved. I Loved To Read; I Loved To Listen To Music; And I Love Cats. Those Three Things. So, Even Though I Was An Only Kid, I Could Be Happy Because I Knew What I Loved.

My Father Belongs To The Generation That Fought The War In The 1940s. When I Was A Kid My Father Told Me Stories - Not So Many, But It Meant A Lot To Me. I Wanted To Know What Happened Then, To My Father's Generation. It's A Kind Of Inheritance, The Memory Of It.

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

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.

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

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

Fate Seems To Be Taking Me In Some Even Stranger Directions.

I Just Feel Pain. A Lot Of Pain. I Thought I Could Imagine How Much This Would Hurt But I Was Wrong.

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

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.

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

No Matter How Clear Things Might Become In The Forest Of Story, There Was Never A Clear-cut Solution, As There Was In Math. The Role Of A Story Was, In The Broadest Terms, To Transpose A Problem Into Another Form. Depending On The Nature And The Direction Of The Problem, A Solution Might Be Suggested In The Narrative. Tengo Would Return To The Real World With That Solution In Hand. It Was Like A Piece Of Paper Bearing The Indecipherable Text Of A Magic Spell. It Served No Immediate Practical Purpose, But It Contained A Possibility.

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.

Was The Earth Put Here Just To Nourish Human Loneliness?

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.

Most Near-future Fictions Are Boring. It's Always Dark And Always Raining, And People Are So Unhappy.

I Didn't Feel Like I Was In My Own Body; My Body Was Just A Lonely, Temporary Container I Happened To Be Borrowing.

I Myself Have Been On My Own And Utterly Independent Since I Graduated. I Haven't Belonged To Any Company Or Any System. It Isn't Easy To Live Like This In Japan.

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 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.

Generally, People Who Are Good At Writing Letters Have No Need To Write Letters. They've Got Plenty Of Life To Lead Inside Their Own Context.

My Face, My Self, What Would They Mean To Anybody? Just Another Stiff. So This Self Of Mine Passes Some Other's Self On The Street - What Do We Have To Say To Each Other? Hey There! Hi Ya!that's About It. Nobody Raises A Hand. No One Turns Around To Take Another Look.

When The Fire Goes Out, You'll Start Feeling The Cold. You'll Wake Up Whether You Want To Or Not.

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

I'm A Coward When It Comes To Matters Of The Heart. That Is My Fatal Flaw.

Everything Has Boundaries. The Same Holds True With Thought. You Shouldn't Fear Boundaries, But You Also Should Not Be Afraid Of Destroying Them. That's What Is Most Important If You Want To Be Free: Respect For And Exasperation With Boundaries. What's Really Important In Life Is Always The Things That Are Secondary.

If You Miss The Bus, Miss The Train, You’d Be Left Behind. So Everyone Says, Let’s Get On The Train, Let’s Get On The Bus And Go Faster And Get Rich... I Just Didn’t Like That Kind Of Lifestyle. I Love To Read Books, To Listen To Music.

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Jean-Marie Le Pen

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