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

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

Understanding the Quote: "if i have left a wound inside you, it is not just..."

This quote by Haruki Murakami reflects deeply on the theme of wells. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Wells, Mines, Left, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Haruki Murakami interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami is celebrated for insightful thoughts on wells and mines. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Wells
Mines
Left
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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.
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That's The Kind Of Death That Frightens Me. The Shadow Of Death Slowly, Slowly Eats Away At The Region Of Life, And Before You Know It Everything's Dark And You Can't See, And The People Around You Think Of You As More Dead Than Alive.
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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.
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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.
Sky
Bird
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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.
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Oshima's Silent For A Time As He Gazes At The Forest, Eyes Narrowed. Birds Are Flitting From One Branch To The Next. His Hands Are Clasped Behind His Head. "i Know How You Feel," He Finally Says. "but This Is Something You Have To Work Out On Your Own. Nobody Can Help You. That's What Love's All About, Kafka. You're The One Having Those Wonderful Feelings, But You Have To Go It Alone As You Wander Through The Dark. Your Mind And Body Have To Bear It All. All By Yourself.
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When I Open Them, Most Of The Books Have The Smell Of An Earlier Time Leaking Out Between The Pages - A Special Odor Of The Knowledge And Emotions That For Ages Have Been Calmly Resting Between The Covers. Breathing It In, I Glance Through A Few Pages Before Returning Each Book To Its Shelf.
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How Many Sundays - How Many Hundreds Of Sundays Like This - Lay Ahead Of Me? “quiet, Peaceful, And Lonely,” I Said Aloud To Myself. On Sundays, I Didn't Wind My Spring.
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I Like To Read Books. I Like To Listen To Music.
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Maybe She Thought The Garbage And Rocks In Your Head Were Interesting. But Finally, Garbage Is Garbage And Rocks Are Rocks.
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I’m Just Kinda Tired. Like A Monkey In The Rain.
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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
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Everything Was Too Sharp And Clear, So That I Could Never Tell Where To Start- The Way A Map That Shows Too Much Can Sometimes Be Useless.
Useless
Maps
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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.
Pain
Eye
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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.
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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.
Real
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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.
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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.
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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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I Didn't Start Running Because Somebody Asked Me To Become A Runner. Just Like I Didn't Become A Novelist Because Someone Asked Me To. One Day, Out Of The Blue, I Wanted To Write A Novel. And One Day, Out Of The Blue, I Started To Run-simply Because I Wanted To. I've Always Done Whatever I Felt Like Doing In Life. People May Try To Stop Me, And Convince Me I'm Wrong, But I Won't Change.
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When There's Nothing To Do, You Do Nothing Slowly And Intently.
All Over The World People Have Developed Their Own Ideas About What's Right And Wrong In Life, But So Long As You Aren't Harming Others Or The Earth, It's Your Choice When You Decide How You Want To Live Your Life - Yours And Yours Alone. Life's No Piece Of Cake, Mind You, But The Recipe's My Own To Fool With.
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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.
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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.
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A Gentleman Is Someone Who Does Not What He Wants To Do, But What He Should Do.
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And It Came To Me Then. That We Were Wonderful Traveling Companions But In The End No More Than Lonely Lumps Of Metal In Their Own Separate Orbits. From Far Off They Look Like Beautiful Shooting Stars, But In Reality They're Nothing More Than Prisons, Where Each Of Us Is Locked Up Alone, Going Nowhere. When The Orbits Of These Two Satellites Of Ours Happened To Cross Paths, We Could Be Together. Maybe Even Open Our Hearts To Each Other. But That Was Only For The Briefest Moment. In The Next Instant We'd Be In Absolute Solitude. Until We Burned Up And Became Nothing.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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What Do You Think? I'm Not A Starfish Or A Pepper Tree. I'm A Living, Breathing Human Being. Of Course I've Been In Love.
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The Light Of Morning Decomposes Everything.
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You Got To Know Your Limits. Once Is Enough, But You Got To Learn. A Little Caution Never Hurt Anyone. A Good Woodsman Has Only One Scar On Him. No More, No Less.
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So The Fact That I’m Me And No One Else Is One Of My Greatest Assets. Emotional Hurt Is The Price A Person Has To Pay In Order To Be Independent.
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Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?
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Between A High, Solid Wall And An Egg That Breaks Against It, I Will Always Stand On The Side Of The Egg.
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I Closed My Eyes And Listened Carefully For The Descendants Of Sputnik, Even Now Circling The Earth, Gravity Their Only Tie To The Planet. Lonely Metal Souls In The Unimpeded Darkness Of Space, They Meet, Pass Each Other, And Part, Never To Meet Again. No Words Passing Between Them. No Promises To Keep.
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Life Is So Uncertain: You Never Know What Could Happen. One Way To Deal With That Is To Keep Your Pajamas Washed.
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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.
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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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Nakata's Empty Inside... Do You Know What It Means To Be Completely Empty? Being Empty Is Like A Vacant House. An Unlocked, Vacant House. Anybody Can Come In, Anytime They Want. That's What Scares Me The Most
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I Wondered If She Was Trying To Convey Something To Me, Something She Could Not Put Into Words - Something Prior To Words That She Could Not Grasp Within Herself And Which Therefore Had No Hope Of Ever Turning Into Words.
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I Just Gave Them A Little Scare. A Touch Of Psychological Terror. As Joseph Conrad Once Wrote, True Terror Is The Kind That Men Feel Towards Their Imagination. (from Super-frog Saves Tokyo)
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The Morning Air Of The Pasture Turned Steadily Cooler. Day By Day, The Bright Golden Leaves Of The Birches Turned More Spotted As The First Winds Of Winter Slipped Between The Withered Branches And Across The Highlands Toward The Southeast. Stopping In The Center Of The Pasture, I Could Hear The Winds Clearly. No Turning Back, They Pronounced. The Brief Autumn Was Gone.
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If They Invent A Car That Runs On Stupid Jokes, You Could Go Far.
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Sometimes When I Think Of Life, I Feel Like A Piece Of Driftwood Washed Up On Shore.
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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.
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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
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Lost Opportunities, Lost Possibilities, Feelings We Can Never Get Back. That's Part Of What It Means To Be Alive. But Inside Our Heads - At Least That's Where I Imagine It - There's A Little Room Where We Store Those Memories. A Room Like The Stacks In This Library. And To Understand The Workings Of Our Own Heart We Have To Keep On Making New Reference Cards. We Have To Dust Things Off Every Once In Awhile, Let In Fresh Air, Change The Water In The Flower Vases. In Other Words, You'll Live Forever In Your Own Private Library.
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But If You Knew You Might Not Be Able To See It Again Tomorrow, Everything Would Suddenly Become Special And Precious, Wouldn’t It?
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This Is The Extent Of His Knowledge Of The Sea: It Was Very Big, It Was Salty, And Fish Lived There.
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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.
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To Me, Love Is A Pure Idea Forged In Flesh, Awkwardly Maybe, But It Had To Connect To Somewhere, Despite Twists And Turns Of Underground Cable. An All-too-perfect Thing. Sometimes The Lines Get Crossed. Or You Get A Wrong Number. But That's Nobody's Fault. It'll Always Be Like That, So Long As We Exist In This Physical Form. As A Matter Of Principle.
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You Know, The Usual Story. Once Upon A Time I Was Playing My Harp By A Spring When A Fairy Appeared Out Of Nowhere, Handed Me A Beretta Model 92, And Told Me To Shoot The White Rabbit Over There For Target Practice.
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What We Call The Present Is Given Shape By An Accumulation Of The Past.
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Sometimes I Feel So- I Don’t Know - Lonely. The Kind Of Helpless Feeling When Everything You’re Used To Has Been Ripped Away. Like There’s No More Gravity, And I’m Left To Drift In Outer Space With No Idea Where I’m Going’ Like A Little Lost Sputnik?’ I Guess So.
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I Can't Understand Nothingness. I Can't Understand It And I Can't Imagine It.
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If You Listen To The Radio For A Whole Hour There's Maybe One Decent Song. The Rest Is Mass-produced Garbage
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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.
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It Is Hard To Be An Individual In Japan.
Japan
Individual
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I Try Not To Think About Anything Special While Running. As A Matter Of Fact, I Usually Run With My Mind Empty. However, When I Run Empty-minded, Something Naturally And Abruptly Crawls In Sometime. That Might Become An Idea That Can Help Me With My Writing.
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Rousseau Defined Civilizations As When People Build Fences.
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People
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Let The Wind Change Direction A Little Bit, And Their Cries Turned To Whispers.
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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?
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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
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Important
Pithy
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.
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Thinking
People
When I Was A Teenager, I Thought How Great It Would Be If Only I Could Write Novels In English. I Had The Feeling That I Would Be Able To Express My Emotions So Much More Directly Than If I Wrote In Japanese.
Teenager
Writing
Feelings
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.
Hands
People
Doubt
A Person's Last Moments Are An Important Thing. You Can't Choose How You're Born But You Can Choose How You Die.
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Lasts
Moments
Autumn Finally Arrived. And When It Did, I Came To A Decision. Something Had To Give: I Couldn't Keep On Living Like This.
Autumn
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Decision
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.
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Independent
Roots
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.
Writing
Letters
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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.
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Rocks
Brave
The Others In The Dorm Thought I Wanted To Be A Writer, Because I Was Always Alone With A Book, But I Had No Such Ambition. There Was Nothing I Wanted To Be.
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How Many Times Have You Said, 'this Is It. I've Finally Found My One True Love'? And How Many Times Has The Reality Turned Out Differently? Paperback Romances And Fairy Tales Promote An Ideal Of A First And Only Love, But Few Of Us Can Claim To Have Had Such Uncomplicated Good Fortune. For Most People, The Process Of Finding The Perfect Partner Is One Trial And Error: Breakups, Makeups, Missed Opportunities And Misunderstandings. Human Love Is A Fragile Creation, And Sometimes The Smallest Thing - The Wrong Choice Of Words Or A Single Clumsy Gesture - Can Make Love Shatter, Stall Or Fade Away.
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Love Is
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.
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Before I Became A Writer, I Was Running A Jazz Bar In The Center Of Tokyo, Which Means That I Worked In Filthy Air All The Time Late Into The Night. I Was Very Excited When I Started Making A Living Out Of My Writing, And I Decided, 'i Will Live In Nothing But An Absolutely Healthy Way.'
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That Was The Rule. Break One Of My Rules Once, And I’m Bound To Break Many More.
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Bounds
Team Sports Aren't My Thing. I Find It Easier To Pick Something Up If I Can Do It At My Own Speed. And You Don't Need A Partner To Go Running, You Don't Need A Particular Place, Like In Tennis, Just A Pair Of Trainers.
Sports
Running
Team
If You Think About It, An Unfair Society Is A Society That Makes It Possible For You To Exploit Your Abilities To The Limit.
Thinking
Limits
Unfair
Listen Up—there’s No War That Will End All Wars,’ Crow Tells Me. ‘war Breeds War. Lapping Up The Blood Shed By Violence, Feeding On Wounded Flesh. War Is A Perfect, Self-contained Being. You Need To Know That.
War
Self
Blood
I Closed My Eyes And Tried To Sleep. But It Was Not Until Much Later That I Was Able To Get Any Real Sleep. In A Place Far Away From Anyone Or Anywhere, I Drifted Off For A Moment.
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Sleep
Eye
When I Was Fifteen, All I Wanted Was To Go Off To Some Other World, A Place Beyond Anybody’s Reach. A Place Beyond The Flow Of Time.” - But There’s No Place Like That In This World. - Exactly. Which Is Why I’m Living Here, In This World Where Things Are Continually Damaged, Where The Heart Is Fickle, Where Time Flows Past Without A Break.
Heart
Past
Other Worlds
Did You Ever See Anyone Shot By A Gun Without Bleeding?
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Bleeding
Shots
It Is Very Simple, Actually. It Is Because You And Tengo Were So Powerfully Drawn To Each Other.
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Lust
Sometimes Fate Is Like A Small Sandstorm That Keeps Changing Directions. You Change Direction But The Sandstorm Chases You. You Turn Again, But The Storm Adjusts.
Fate
Storm
Adjusting
I Can Be Hurt, You Know. I Can Get As Exhausted As Anybody Else. I Can Feel So Bad I Want To Cry, Too.
Hurt
Want
Exhausted
Time Expands, Then Contracts, All In Tune With The Stirrings Of The Heart.
Time
Heart
Tunes
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.
Running
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I Wasn't Particularly Afraid Of Death Itself. As Shakespeare Said, Die This Year And You Don't Have To Die The Next.
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Said
That's What The World Is , After All: An Endless Battle Of Contrasting Memories.
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A Person’s Destiny Is Something You Look Back At Afterwards, Not Something To Be Known In Advance.
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Looks
Overhead, The Two Moons Worked Together To Bathe The World In A Strange Light.
Moon
Light
Two
Kindness And A Caring Mind Are Two Separate Qualities. Kindness Is Manners. It Is Superficial Custom, An Acquired Practice. Not So The Mind. The Mind Is Deeper, Stronger, And, I Believe, It Is Far More Inconstant.
Kindness
Believe
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Either I'm Funny Or The World's Funny. I Don't Know Which. The Bottle And Lid Don't Fit. It Could Be The Bottle's Fault Or The Lid's Fault. In Either Case, There's No Denying That The Fit Is Bad.
World
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Bottles
Her Pupils Have Taken On A Lonely Hue, Like Grey Clouds Reflected In A Calm Lake.
Lonely
Taken
Lakes
It's The Same With Menus And Men And Just About Anything Else: We Think We're Choosing Things For Ourselves, But In Fact We May Not Be Choosing Anything. It Could Be That Everthing's Being Decided In Advance And We Pretend We're Making Choices. Free Will May Be An Illusion. I Often Think That.
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If You Can Love Someone With Your Whole Heart, Even One Person, Then There's Salvation In Life. Even If You Can't Get Together With That Person.
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Life
Hope
Life Is Here, Death Is Over There. I Am Here, Not Over There.
Life Is
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.
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Boys
Years
Passion Can’t Sustain Itself Forever.
Passion
Forever
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.
Couple
Book
Heart
She's Letting Out Her Feelings. The Scary Thing Is Not Being Able To Do That. When Your Feelings Build Up And Harden And Die Inside, Then You're In Big Trouble.
Expression
Scary
Feelings
I Said Nothing For A Time, Just Ran My Fingertips Along The Edge Of The Human-shaped Emptiness That Had Been Left Inside Me.
Emptiness
Fingertips
Said
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.
Girl
Thinking
Self
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.
One Day
Film
Wanted
That's Why I Like Listening To Schubert While I'm Driving. Like I Said, It's Because All His Performances Are Imperfect. A Dense, Artistic Kind Of Imperfection Stimulates Your Consciousness, Keeps You Alert. If I Listen To Some Utterly Perfect Performance Of An Utterly Perfect Piece While I'm Driving, I Might Want To Close My Eyes And Die Right Then And There. But Listening To The D Major, I Can Feel The Limits Of What Humans Are Capable Of - That A Certain Type Of Perfection Can Only Be Realized Through A Limitless Accumulation Of The Imperfect. And Personally I Find That Encouraging.
Eye
Perfect
Listening
Fate Seems To Be Taking Me In Some Even Stranger Directions.
Fate
Stranger
Seems
If You Really Want To Know What's Happening Here And Now, You've Got To Use Your Own Eyes And Your Own Judgment.
Eye
Use
Want
George Orwell Is Half Journalist, Half Fiction Writer. I'm 100 Percent Fiction Writer... I Don't Want To Write Messages. I Want To Write Good Stories. I Think Of Myself As A Political Person, But I Don't State My Political Messages To Anybody.
Writing
Thinking
Political
How About Proust's In Search Of Lost Time?" Tamaru Asked. "if You've Never Read It This Would Be A Good Opportunity To Read The Whole Thing." "have You Read It?" "no, I Haven't Been In Jail, Or Had To Hide Out For A Long Time. Someone Once Said Unless You Have Those Kinds Of Opportunities, You Can't Read The Whole Of Proust.
Opportunity
Jail
Long
I'm Always Tripped Up By The Eternal Who Am I?
Eternal
There Are Ways Of Dying That Don't End In Funerals. Types Of Death You Can't Smell.
Smell
Funeral
Dying
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.
Real
Baptism
Stories
What I'd Like To Be Is A Unique Writer Who's Different From Everybody Else. I Want To Be A Writer Who Tells Stories Unlike Other Writers'.
Unique
Different
Stories
I Don't Know -- Maybe The World Has Two Different Kinds Of People, And For One Kind The World Is This Completely Logical, Rice Pudding Place, And For The Other It's All Hit-or-miss Macaroni Gratin.
Two
People
Missing
After All This, I Won't Start To Hate You.
Hate
Hate You
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.
Heart
Important
Finals
The Library Was Like A Second Home. Or Maybe More Like A Real Home, More Than The Place I Lived In. By Going Every Day I Got To Know All The Lady Librarians Who Worked There. They Knew My Name And Always Said Hi. I Was Painfully Shy, Though, And Could Barely Reply.
Real
Home
Names
Unclose Your Mind. You Are Not A Prisoner. You Are A Bird In Flight, Searching The Skies For Dreams.
Dream
Healing
Fighting
Whatever Can't Be Expressed Might As Well Not Exist.
Might
Wells
I Didn't Read So Much Japanese Literature. Because My Father Was A Teacher Of Japanese Literature, I Just Wanted To Do Something Else.
Teacher
Father
Literature
No One Could Say How Long That Life Would Last. Whatever Has Form Can Disappear In An Instant.
Long
Lasts
Disappear
Then I Noticed That My Shadow Was Crying Too, Shedding Clear, Sharp Shadow Tears. Have You Ever Seen The Shadows Of Tears, Mr. Wind-up Bird? They’re Nothing Like Ordinary Shadows. Nothing At All. They Come Here From Some Other, Distant World, Especially For Our Hearts. Or Maybe Not. It Struck Me Then That The Tears My Shadow Was Shedding Might Be The Real Thing, And The Tears That I Was Shedding Were Just Shadows. You Don’t Get It, I’m Sure, Mr. Wind-up Bird. When A Naked Seventeen-year-old Girl Is Shedding Tears In The Moonlight, Anything Can Happen. It’s True.
Girl
Real
Heart
I Was In My House, Alone In The Living Room, Anxious About You, Watching The Flashes Of Lightning. And A Flash Of Lightning Lit Up This Truth For Me, Right In Front Of My Eye. That Night I Lost You, I Lost Something Inside Me. Or Perhaps Several Things. Something Central To My Existence, The Very Support For Who I Am As A Person
Eye
Night
Who I Am
But What Seems Like A Reasonable Distance To One Person Might Feel Too Far To Somebody Else.
Distance
Might
Feels
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.
Writing
Two
Style
If You Really Want To Know Something, You Have To Be Willing To Pay The Price.
Pay The Price
Want
Willing
Each Of Us Possesses A Tangible Living Soul. The System Has No Such Thing. We Must Not Allow The System To Exploit Us.
Soul
Tangible
Exploits
Isn't Life Strange? There Are People Who Have So Many Leftover Clothes They Can't Stuff Them All In Their Wardrobe. And Then There Are People Like Me, Whose Socks Never Match.
Clothes
People
Stuff
For Example, The Wind Has Its Reasons. We Just Don't Notice As We Go About Our Lives. But Then, At Some Point, We Are Made To Notice. The Wind Envelops You With A Certain Purpose In Mind, And It Rocks You. The Wind Knows Everything That's Inside You. And Not Just The Wind. Everything, Including A Stone. They All Know Us Very Well. From Top To Bottom. It Only Occurs To Us At Certain Times. And All We Can Do Is Go With Those Things. As We Take Them In, We Survive, And Deepen.
Wind
Rocks
Mind
Mental Acuity Was Never Born From Comfortable Circumstances.
Born
Circumstances
Comfortable
The Pillow Smells Like The Sunlight, A Precious Smell.
Smell
Sunlight
Pillow
Everybody Has To Start Somewhere. You Have Your Whole Future Ahead Of You. Perfection Doesn't Happen Right Away.
Perfection
Fresh Start
Happens
Love With Complications. Scenery Was The Last Thing On My Mind.
Mind
Lasts
Norwegian Wood
In Terms Of Evolutionary History, It Was Only Yesterday That Men Learned To Walk Around On Two Legs And Get In Trouble Thinking Complicated Thoughts. So Don't Worry, You'll Burn Out.
Men
Thinking
Two
[...] Shimamoto Had Her Own Little World Within Her. A World That Was For Her Alone, One I Could Not Enter.
World
Littles
As With Marathon Runs And Lengths Of Toilet Paper, There Had To Be Standards To Measure Up To.
Running
Paper
Toilets
You’re Really Cute, Midori,” I Corrected Myself. “what Do You Mean Really Cute?” “so Cute The Mountains Crumble And The Oceans Dry Up.
Cute
Ocean
Mean
The Journey I'm Taking Is Inside Me. Just Like Blood Travels Down Veins, What I'm Seeing Is My Inner Self And What Seems Threatening Is Just The Echo Of The Fear In My Heart.
Fear
Heart
Journey
I Think People Who Share My Dreams Can Enjoy Reading My Novels. And That's A Wonderful Thing. I Said That Myths Are Like A Reservoir Of Stories, And If I Can Act As A Similar Kind Of "reservoir," Albeit A Modest One, That Would Make Me Very Happy.
Dream
Reading
Thinking
You Don't Have To Judge The Whole World By Your Own Standards. Not Everybody Is Like You, You Know.
Judging
World
Like You
It's Not Me But The World That's Deranged.
World
Deranged
Painful Is The Stress When One Cannot Reproduce Or Convey Vividly To Others, However Hard He Tries, What He's Experienced So Intensely.
Stress
Trying
Painful
If You Try To Use Your Head To Think About Things, People Don't Want To Have Anything To Do With You
Thinking
People
Trying
Please Think Of Me Like An Endangered Species And Just Observe Me Quietly From Far Away. If You Try To Talk To Me Or Touch Me Casually, I May Get Intimidated And Bite You. So Please Be Careful.
Thinking
Trying
May
"i Believe You," She Whispers After A Moment. "please Find My Mind."
Believe
Mind
Moments
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.
Important
Nuance
Kind
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.
Ocean
Heart
Sadness
As Long As I Kept My Body Moving I Could Forget About The Emptiness Inside.
Moving
Numbness
Long
I Often Recall These Words When I Am Writing, And I Think To Myself, “it’s True. There Aren’t Any New Words. Our Job Is To Give New Meanings And Special Overtones To Absolutely Ordinary Words.” I Find The Thought Reassuring. It Means That Vast, Unknown Stretches Still Lie Before Us, Fertile Territories Just Waiting For Us To Cultivate Them.
Jobs
Lying
Writing
Is This What It Means To Go Back To Square One? Most Likely. He Had Nothing Left To Lose, Other Than His Life.
Mean
Squares
Left
I Always Write My Novels With Music (i Don't Listened To The Music Seriously.) Music Seems To Encourage Me.
Writing
Novel
Seems
His Heart, Like Mine, Was Ticking Off The Time Allotted To His Small Restless Body.
Heart
Body
Restless
Music Brings A Warm Glow To My Vision, Thawing Mind And Muscle From Their Endless Wintering.
Music
Winter
Mind
I Wasn't In Love With Her. And She Didn't Love Me. For Me The Question Of Love Was Irrelevant. What I Sought Was The Sense Of Being Tossed About By Some Raging, Savage Force, In The Midst Of Which Lay Something Absolutely Crucial. I Had No Idea What That Was. But I Wanted To Thrust My Hand Right Inside Her Body And Touch It, Whatever It Was.
Hands
Ideas
Lust
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.
Book
Writing
Thinking
Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Always Only One Reality!
Reality
Fool
Appearance
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.
Thinking
Wind
Sea
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.
Thinking
Personality
Variation
Like It Or Not, It's The Society We Live In. Even The Standard Of Right And Wrong Has Been Subdivided, Made Sophisticated. Within Good, There's Fashionable Good And Unfashionable Good, And Ditto For Bad. Within Fashionable Good, There's Formal And Then There's Casual; There's Hip, There's Cool, There's Trendy, There's Snobbish. Mix 'n' Match.
Hips
Sophisticated
Made
Everyone, Deep In Their Hearts, Is Waiting For The End Of The World To Come.
Heart
Waiting
World
Not That We Were Incompatible: We Just Had Nothing To Talk About.
I May Be The Type Who Manages To Grab All The Pointless Things In Life But Lets The Really Important Things Slip Away.
Things In Life
Important
May
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.
Religious
Men
Domestic Violence
Mediocrity's Like A Spot On A Shirt—it Never Comes Off.
Mediocrity
Shirts
Spots
The Little Things Are Important, Mr. Wind-up Bird.
Wind
Bird
Important
If You Think God’s There, He Is. If You Don’t, He Isn’t. And If That’s What God’s Like, I Wouldn’t Worry About It.
Atheist
Thinking
Worry
Each Individual Has Their Own Unique Color, Which Shines Faintly Around The Contours Of Their Body. Like A Halo. Or A Backlight. I'm Able To See Those Colors Clearly.
Unique
Color
Personality
Chance Encounters Are What Keep Us Going.
Life
Encounters
Chance
You Couldn’t Begin To Imagine Who I Am, Where I’m Going, Or What I’m About To Do, All Of You Are Trapped Here. You Can’t Go Anywhere, Forward Or Back. But I’m Not Like You. I Have Work To Do. I Have A Mission To Accomplish. And So, With Your Permission, I Shall Move Ahead.
Moving
Who I Am
Imagine
How Can The Mind Be So Imperfect?" She Says With A Smile. I Look At My Hands. Bathed In The Moonlight, They Seem Like Statues, Proportioned To No Purpose. "it May Well Be Imperfect," I Say, "but It Leaves Traces. And We Can Follow Those Traces, Like Footsteps In The Snow." "where Do The Lead?" "to Oneself," I Answer. "that's Where The Mind Is. Without The Mind, Nothing Leads Anywhere." I Look Up. The Winter Moon Is Brilliant, Over The Town, Above The Wall. "not One Thing Is Your Fault," I Comfort Her.
Wall
Winter
Moon
If A Person Remains Tense For A Long Time He Might Not Notice It Himself, But It’s Like His Nerves Are A Piece Of Rubber That Has Been Stretched Out. It’s Hard To Go Back To The Original Shape.
Long
Nerves
Pieces
What I Was Chasing In Circles Must Have Been The Tail Of The Darkness Inside Me.
Circles
Darkness
Tails
When A Writer Develops A Story, He Is Confronted With A Poison That Is Inside Him. If You Don't Have That Poison, Your Story Will Be Boring And Uninspired. It's Like Fugu: The Flesh Of The Pufferfish Is Extremely Tasty, But The Roe, The Liver, The Heart Can Be Lethally Toxic.
Heart
Toxic
Poison
Time Flows In A Strange Way On Sundays.
Sunday
Way
Flow
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.
Spring
School
Animal
If Writing Novels Is Like Planting A Forest, Then Writing Short Stories Is More Like Planting A Garden.
Writing
Garden
Stories
Most Near-future Fictions Are Boring. It's Always Dark And Always Raining, And People Are So Unhappy.
Rain
Dark
People
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?
Fun
Plato
Soul
Things Pass Us By. Nobody Can Catch Them. That's The Way We Live Our Lives.
Way
Our Lives
It's Basically The Same In All Periods Of Societies. If You Belong To The Majority, You Can Avoid Thinking About Lots Of Troubling Things.' 'and Those Troubling Things Are All You /can/ Think About When You're One Of The Few.' 'that's About The Size Of It,' She Said Mournfully. 'but Maybe, If You're In A Situation Like That, You Learn To Think For Yourself.' 'yes, But Maybe What You End Up Thinking For Yourself /about/ Is All Those Troubling Things.
Thinking
Majority
Size
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.
Romantic
True Love
Heart
Reality's Just The Accumulation Of Ominous Prophecies Come To Life. All You Have To Do Is Open A Newspaper On Any Given Day To Weigh The Good News Versus The Bad News, And You'll See What I Mean.
Mean
Reality
News
As I See It, You Are Living With Something That You Keep Hidden Deep Inside. Something Heavy. I Felt It From The First Time I Met You. You Have A Strong Gaze, As If You Have Made Up Your Mind About Something. To Tell You The Truth, I Myself Carry Such Things Around Inside. Heavy Things. That Is How I Can See It In You.
Strong
Mind
Heavy Things
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.
Memories
Dark
What If
Kafka Is One Of My Very Favorite Writers. Kafka's Fictional World Is Already So Complete That Trying To Follow In His Steps Is Not Just Pointless, But Quite Risky, Too. What I See Myself Doing, Rather, Is Writing Novels Where, In My Own Way, I Dismantle The Fictional World Of Kafka That Itself Dismantled The Existing Novelistic System.
Writing
Trying
World
In Order To Pin Down Reality As Realilty, We Need Another Reality To Relativize The First. Yet That Other Reality Requires A Third Reality To Serve As Its Grounding. An Endless Chain Is Created Within Our Consciousness, And It Is The Maintenance Of This Chain Which Produces The Sensation That We Are Actually Here, That We Ourselves Exist.
Reality
Order
Needs
What The World Needs Is A Set Villain That People Can Point At And Say, “it’s All Your Fault!
People
Needs
World
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.
Thinking
Japan
Circles
Is It Possible To Become Friends With A Butterfly?
Butterfly
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.
Real
Thinking
World
Nothing So Consumes A Person As Meaningless Exertion
Exertion
Persons
Meaningless
She Was Beautiful And Seemingly Quite Intelligent, What With Her Pentameter Search System. There Wasn't A Reason In The World Not To Find Her Appealing.
Beautiful
Intelligent
World
But I Didn't Understand Then. That I Could Hurt Somebody So Badly She Would Never Recover. That A Person Can, Just By Living, Damage Another Human Being Beyond Repair.
Hurt
Damage
Humans
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.
Missing
Paper
Pebbles
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.
People
Advice
World
Writing A Long Novel Is Like Survival Training. Physical Strength Is As Necessary As Artistic Sensitivity.
Writing
Long
Survival
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.
Knowledge
Confusion
World
Age Certainly Hadn't Conferred Any Smarts On Me. Character Maybe, But Mediocrity Is A Constant, As One Russian Writer Put It. Russian Writers Have A Way With Aphorisms. They Probably Spend All Winter Thinking Them Up.
Smart
Character
Winter
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