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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.

-Haruki Murakami

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In Terms Of Evolutionary

Haruki Murakami

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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.

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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.

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

She Lived Frugally, But Her Meals Were The Only Things On Which She Deliberately Spent Her Money. She Never Compromised On The Quality Of Her Groceries, And Drank Only Good-quality Wines.

Music Always Stimulates My Imagination. When I'm Writing I Usually Have Some Baroque Music On Low In The Background Chamber Music By Bach, Telemann, And The Like.

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.

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

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

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

It Is My Huge Pleasure That My Novels Are Translated Into Languages That Are Read Among Small Numbers Of People.

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

A Person Learns How To Love Himself Through The Simple Acts Of Loving And Being Loved By Someone Else.

Me, I've Seen 45 Years And I've Only Figured Out One Thing. That's This: If A Person Would Just Make The Effort, There's Something To Be Learned From Everything. From Even The Most Ordinary, Commonplace Things, There's Always Something You Can Learn. I Read Somewhere That They Said There's Even Different Philosophies In Razors. Fact Is, If It Weren't For That, Nobody'd Survive.

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

The Thoughts That Occur To Me While I’m Running Are Like Clouds In The Sky. Clouds Of All Different Sizes. They Come And They Go, While The Sky Remains The Same Sky Always. The Clouds Are Mere Guests In The Sky That Pass Away And Vanish, Leaving Behind The Sky.

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

As With Marathon Runs And Lengths Of Toilet Paper, There Had To Be Standards To Measure Up To.

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

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.

People Sometimes Sneer At Those Who Run Every Day, Claiming They'll Go To Any Length To Live Longer. But Don't Think That's The Reason Most People Run. Most Runners Run Not Because They Want To Live Longer, But Because They Want To Live Life To The Fullest.

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

Passing Moments

To Know One’s Own State Is Not A Simple Matter. One Cannot Look Directly At One’s Own Face With One’s Own Eyes, For Example. One Has No Choice But To Look At One’s Reflection In The Mirror. Through Experience, We Come To Believe That The Image Is Correct, But That Is All.

Did You Ever See Anyone Shot By A Gun Without Bleeding?

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.

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

I Am A Flawed Human Being - A Far More Flawed Human Being Than You Realize.

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

My Biggest Faults Is That The Faults I Was Born With Grow Bigger Each Year. It's Like I Was Raising Chickens Inside Me. The Chickens Lay Eggs And The Eggs Hatch Into Other Chickens, Which Then Lay Eggs. Is This Any Way To Live A Life? What With All These Faults I've Got Going, I Have To Wonder. Sure, I Get By. But In The End, That's Not The Question, Is It?

Loving Another Person Is A Wonderful Thing, And If That Love Is Sincere, No One Ends Up Tossed Into A Labyrinth. You Have To Have More Faith In Yourself.

Life Is Not Like Water. Things In Life Don't Necessarily Flow Over The Shortest Possible Route.

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

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

Hundreds Of Butterflies Flitted In And Out Of Sight Like Short-lived Punctuation Marks In A Stream Of Consciousness Without Beginning Or End.

Punctuation Marks

I Think Of Myself As More The Non-turn-on Type. So When I Do Get Turned On, I Don’t Trust It, I Have To Investigate The Source.

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

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

Everybody's Born With Some Different Thing At The Core Of Their Existence. And That Thing, Whatever It Is, Becomes Like A Heat Source That Runs Each Person From The Inside. I Have One Too, Of Course. Like Everybody Else. But Sometimes It Gets Out Of Hand. It Swells Or Shrinks Inside Me, And It Shakes Me Up. What I'd Really Like To Do Is Find A Way To Communicate That Feeling To Another Person.

Precipitate As Weather, She Appeared From Somewhere, Then Evaporated, Leaving Only Memory.

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

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

A Fortunate Author Can Write Maybe Twelve Novels In His Lifetime.

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

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

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

Now And Then May Not Be Enough…you Have To Enjoy It While You’re Still Young. Enjoy It To The Fullest. You Can Use The Memories Of What You Did To Warm Your Body After You Get Old And Can’t Do It Anymore.

At Least He Never Walked.

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.

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.

This Person, This Self, This Me, Finally, Was Made Somewhere Else. Everything Had Come From Somewhere Else, And It Would All Go Somewhere Else. I Was Nothing But A Pathway For The Person Known As Me.

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.

It Is However, Difficult To Make Your Narratives Relative By Yourself. A Novelists' Work Is To Provide Models To Make Your Narratives Relative. If You Read My Novels Then You May Feel, "i Have The Same Experience As This Narrative", Or "i Have The Same Idea As This Novel". It Means That Your Narrative And Mine Sympathize, Concord And Resonate Together.

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.

Life Is A Lot More Fragile Than We Think. So You Should Treat Others In A Way That Leaves No Regrets. Fairly, And If Possible, Sincerely.

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

Running Taught Me To Have Faith In My Skills As A Writer. I Learned How Much I Can Demand Of Myself, When I Need A Break, And When The Break Starts To Get Too Long. I Known How Hard I Am Allowed To Push Myself.

Colours Shone With Exceptional Clarity In The Rain. The Ground Was A Deep Black, The Pine Branches A Brilliant Green, The People Wrapped In Yellow Looking Like Special Spirits That Were Allowed To Wander Over The Earth On Rainy Mornings Only.

Sometimes I Get Real Lonely Sleeping With You.

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

Even So, There Were Times I Saw Freshness And Beauty. I Could Smell The Air, And I Really Loved Rock 'n' Roll. Tears Were Warm, And Girls Were Beautiful, Like Dreams. I Liked Movie Theaters, The Darkness And Intimacy, And I Liked The Deep, Sad Summer Nights.

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

Memory Is So Crazy! It's Like We've Got These Drawers Crammed With Tons Of Useless Stuff. Meanwhile, All The Really Important Things We Just Keep Forgetting, One After The Other.

Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?

It's The Real World, Full Of Gaps And Inconsistencies And Anticlimaxes.

Our Hearts Are Not Stones. A Stone May Disintegrate In Time And Lose Its Outward Form. But Hearts Never Disintegrate. They Have No Outward Form, And Whether Good Or Evil, We Can Always Communicate Them To One Another.

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

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

These Days I Just Can't Seem To Say What I Mean [...]. I Just Can't. Every Time I Try To Say Something, It Misses The Point. Either That Or I End Up Saying The Opposite Of What I Mean. The More I Try To Get It Right The More Mixed Up It Gets. Sometimes I Can't Even Remember What I Was Trying To Say In The First Place. It's Like My Body's Split In Two And One Of Me Is Chasing The Other Me Around A Big Pillar. We're Running Circles Around It. The Other Me Has The Right Words, But I Can Never Catch Her.

I Wonder What Ants Do On Rainy Days?

The Problem Was, I Think, That The Places I Fit In Were Always Falling Behind The Rimes.

I Could Have Been A Cult Writer If I'd Kept Writing Surrealistic Novels. But I Wanted To Break Into The Mainstream, So I Had To Prove That I Could Write A Realistic Book.

Everyone Who Has Something Is Afraid Of Losing It, And People With Nothing Are Worried They'll Forever Have Nothing. Everyone Is The Same.

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.

Be Fearless, Be Brave, Be Bold, Love Yourself

The Earth, Time, Concepts, Love, Life, Faith Justice, Evil - They're All Fluid And In Transition. They Don't Stay In One Form Or In One Place Forever. The Whole Universe Is Like Some Big Fedex Box.

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.

If You Want Everything To Be Nice And Straight All The Time, Then Go Live In A World Made With A Triungular Ruler.

That's Good. I Was Worried. Of Course, I Do Have A Few Things Wrong With Me, But Those Are Strictly Problems I Keep Inside. I'd Hate To Think They Were Obvious To Anybody Else. Especially At The Swimming Pool In The Summer.

Mental Acuity Was Never Born From Comfortable Circumstances.

So I Made Up My Mind I Was Going To Find Someone Who Would Love Me Unconditionally Three Hundred And Sixty-five Days A Year. Watanabe: Wow, And Did Your Search Pay Off? M: That's The Hard Part. I Guess I've Been Waiting So Long I'm Looking For Perfection. That Makes It Tough.

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

"i Believe You," She Whispers After A Moment. "please Find My Mind."

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.

Young People These Days Don't Trust Anything At All. They Want To Be Free.

The Good Thing About Writing Books Is That You Can Dream While You Are Awake. If It’s A Real Dream, You Cannot Control It. When Writing The Book, You Are Awake; You Can Choose The Time, The Length, Everything. I Write For Four Or Five Hours In The Morning And When The Time Comes, I Stop. I Can Continue The Next Day. If It’s A Real Dream, You Can’t Do That.

When You Are Used To The Kind Of Life -of Never Getting Anything You Want- You Stop Knowing What It Is You Want.

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

Chance Encounters Are What Keep Us Going.

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.

The Best Way To Think About Reality, I Had Decided, Was To Get As Far Away From It As Possible.

I Have Always Liked Running, So It Wasn't Particularly Difficult To Make It A Habit. All You Need Is A Pair Of Running Shoes And You Can Do It Anywhere. It Does Not Require Anybody To Do It With, And So I Found The Sport Perfectly Fits Me As A Person Who Tends To Be Independent And Individualistic.

I Used To Run A Full Marathon In Three Hours And 25 Or 26 Minutes. Not Any More.

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.

Inspirational Life

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

Something Inside Me Had Dropped Away, And Nothing Came In To Fill The Cavern.

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?

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.

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

It's Not Right For One Friend To Do All The Giving And The Other To Do All The Taking: That's Not Real Friendship.

Symbolism And Meaning Are Two Separate Things. I Think She Found The Right Words By Bypassing Procedures Like Meaning And Logic. She Captured Words In A Dream, Like Delicately Catching Hold Of A Butterfly’s Wings As It Flutters Around. Artists Are Those Who Can Evade The Verbose.

Open Your Eyes, Train Your Ears, Use Your Head. If A Mind You Have, Then Use It While You Can.

Not Just Beautiful, Though--the Stars Are Like The Trees In The Forest, Alive And Breathing. And They're Watching Me.

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.

Being Alive, If You Had To Define It, Meant Emitting A Variety Of Smells.

Even If You Managed To Escape From One Cage, Weren't You Just In Another, Larger One?

Whether In Music Or In Fiction, The Most Basic Thing Is Rhythm. Your Style Needs To Have Good, Natural, Steady Rhythm, Or People Won't Keep Reading Your Work.

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.

Memories And Thoughts Age, Just As People Do. But Certain Thoughts Can Never Age, And Certain Memories Can Never Fade.

Whenever I Get Into Something, I Shut Out Everything Else.

When I Start To Write, I Don't Have Any Plan At All. I Just Wait For The Story To Come.

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.

If You Really Want To Know What's Happening Here And Now, You've Got To Use Your Own Eyes And Your Own Judgment.

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.

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

Killing Time Is Not An Easy Job.

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

Were The Stars Out When I Left The House Last Evening? All I Could Remember Was The Couple In The Skyline Listening To Duran Duran. Stars? Who Remembers Stars? Come To Think Of It, Had I Even Looked Up At The Sky Recently? Had The Stars Been Wiped Out Of The Sky Three Months Ago, I Wouldn’t Have Known.

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

The Grounds Of The Place Were Dominated By Several Large, Old Willow Trees That Towered Over The Surrounding Stone Wall And Swayed Soundlessly In The Wind Like Lost Souls.

Sometimes I Think I've Got This Hard Kernel In My Heart, And Nothing Much Can Get Inside It. I Doubt If I Can Really Love Anybody.

No Truth Can Cure The Sorrow We Feel From Losing A Loved One. No Truth, No Sincerity, No Strength, No Kindness Can Cure That Sorrow. All We Can Do Is See It Through To The End And Learn Something From It, But What We Learn Will Be No Help In Facing The Next Sorrow That Comes To Us Without Warning.

Losing A Loved One

To Be Able To Grasp Something Of Value, Sometimes You Have To Perform Seemingly Inefficient Acts.

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

I'm Often Asked What I Think About As I Run. Usually The People Who Ask This Have Never Run Long Distances Themselves. I Always Ponder The Question. What Exactly Do I Think About When I'm Running? I Don't Have A Clue.

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

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. Over And Over You Play This Out, Like Some Ominous Dance With Death Just Before Dawn. Why? Because This Storm Isn't Something That Blew In From Far Away, Something That Has Nothing To Do With You. This Storm Is You. Something Inside Of You. So All You Can Do Is Give In To It, Step Right Inside The Storm, Closing Your Eyes And Plugging Up Your Ears So The Sand Doesn't Get In, And Walk Through It, Step By Step.

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.

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

Crying Is Personal. On The Other Hand, Laughing Is More General . Laughing Makes Our Hearts Wider.

Her Pupils Have Taken On A Lonely Hue, Like Grey Clouds Reflected In A Calm Lake.

There Had To Be Something Wrong With My Life. I Should Have Been Born A Yugoslavian Shepherd Who Looked Up At The Big Dipper Every Night.

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

Between A High, Solid Wall And An Egg That Breaks Against It, I Will Always Stand On The Side Of The Egg.

Sex Is An Extremely Subtle Undertaking, Unlike Going To The Department Store On A Sunday To Buy A Thermos.

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.

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

Knowing Nothing

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.

To Sleep With A Woman: It Can Seem Of The Utmost Importance In Your Mind, Or Then Again It Can Seem Like Nothing Much At All. Which Only Goes To Say That There's Sex As Therapy (self-therapy, That Is) And There's Sex As Pastime.

Time, Of Course, Topples Everyone In Its Path Equally- The Way That Driver Beats His Old Horse Until It Dies. But The Thrashing We Receive Is One Of Frightful Gentleness. Few Of Us Even Realize That We Are Being Beaten.

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

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.

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.

I Began Running On An Everyday Basis After I Became A Writer. As Being A Writer Requires Sitting At A Desk For Hours A Day, Without Getting Some Exercise You'd Quickly Get Out Of Shape And Gain Weight, I Figured.

Whenever I Meet People For The First Time, I Get Them To Talk For Ten Minutes. Then I Size Them Up From The Exact Opposite Perspective Of All They’ve Told Me. Do You Think That’s Crazy? “no,” I Said, Shaking My Head, “i’d Guess Your Method Works Quite Well.

Nobody's Easier To Fool, Than The Person Who Is Convinced That He Is Right.

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.

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.

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.

Why Do People Have To Be This Lonely? What's The Point Of It All? Millions Of People In This World, All Of Them Yearning, Looking To Others To Satisfy Them, Yet Isolating Themselves. Why? Was The Earth Put Here Just To Nourish Human Loneliness?

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

Passage Of Time

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

"dance," Said The Sheep Man. "yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougotta Dance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, Yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, Wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, You'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, Nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou're Tired, Tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, Okay? Justdon'tletyourfeetstop."

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.

No Matter Where I Go, I Still End Up Me. What's Missing Never Changes. The Scenery May Change, But I'm Still The Same Incomplete Person. The Same Missing Elements Torture Me With A Hunger That I Can Never Satisfy. I Think That Lack Itself Is As Close As I'll Come To Defining Myself.

Everything. Things You Lost. Things You’re Gonna Lose. Everything. Here’s Where It All Ties Together.

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.

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

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

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

I Dream. Sometimes I Think That’s The Only Right Thing To Do. To Dream, To Live In The World Of Dreams. But It Doesn’t Last Forever. Wakefulness Always Comes To Take Me Back.

I'm All Alone, But I'm Not Lonely.

There Was Just One Moon. That Familiar, Yellow, Solitary Moon. The Same Moon That Silently Floated Over Fields Of Pampas Grass, The Moon That Rose--a Gleaming, Round Saucer--over The Calm Surface Of Lakes, That Tranquilly Beamed Down On The Rooftops Of Fast-asleep Houses. The Same Moon That Brought The High Tide To Shore, That Softly Shone On The Fur Of Animals And Enveloped And Protected Travelers At Night. The Moon That, As A Crescent, Shaved Slivers From The Soul--or, As A New Moon, Silently Bathed The Earth In Its Own Loneliness. That Moon.

Suicides? Heart Attacks? The Papers Didn't Seem Interested. The World Was Full Of Ways To Die, Too Many To Cover. Newsworthy Deaths Had To Be Exceptional. Most People Go Unobserved.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

Life Is Here, Death Is Over There. I Am Here, Not Over There.

As If To Build A Fence Around The Fatal Emptiness Inside Her, She Had To Create A Sunny Person That She Became. But If You Peeled Away The Ornamental Egos That She Had Built, There Was Only An Abbys Of Nothingness And The Intense Thirst That Came With It. Though She Tried To Forget It, The Nothingness Would Visit Her Periodically - On A Lonely Rainy Afternoon, Or At Dawn When She Woke Up From A Nightmare. What She Needed At Such Times Was To Be Held By Someone, Anyone.

It's Like The Tibetan Wheel Of The Passions. As The Wheel Turns, The Values And Feelings On The Outer Rim Rise And Fall, Shining Or Sinking Into Darkness. But True Love Stays Fastened To The Axle And Doesn't Move.

This Is No Honky-tonk Parade. 1q84 Is The Real World, Where A Cut Draws Real Blood, Where Pain Is Real Pain And Fear Is Real Fear. The Moon In The Sky Is No Paper Moon.

I Never Plan. I Never Know What The Next Page Is Going To Be..... But That's The Fun Of Writing A Novel Or A Story, Because I Don't Know What's Going To Happen Next.

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

Maybe She Thought The Garbage And Rocks In Your Head Were Interesting. But Finally, Garbage Is Garbage And Rocks Are Rocks.

I Do Feel That I’ve Managed To Make Something I Could Maybe Call My World…over Time…little By Little. And When I’m Inside It, To Some Extent, I Feel Kind Of Relieved. But The Very Fact I Felt I Had To Make Such A World Probably Means That I’m A Weak Person, That I Bruise Easily, Don’t You Think? And In The Eyes Of Society At Large, That World Of Mine Is A Puny Little Thing. It’s Like A Cardboard House: A Puff Of Wind Might Carry It Off Somewhere.

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

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

No Matter What The Situation May Be, I Still Take Pleasure In Witnessing The Joy Of Others.

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

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.

People Have Their Own Reasons For Dying. It Might Look Simple, But It Never Is. It's Just Like A Rock. What's Above Ground Is Only A Small Part Of It. But If You Start Pulling, It Keeps Coming And Coming. The Human Mind Dwells Deep In Darkness. Only The Person Himself Knows The Real Reason, And Maybe Not Even Then.

I’m Just Kinda Tired. Like A Monkey In The Rain.

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.

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.

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.

Pulled Into My Convenient Neighborhood Fast Food Restaurant. I Ordered Shrimp Salad, Onion Rings, And A Beer. The Shrimp Were Straight Out Of The Freezer, The Onion Rings Soggy. Looking Around The Place, Though, I Failed To Spot A Single Customer Banging On A Tray Or Complaining To A Waitress. So I Shut Up And Finished My Food. Expect Nothing, Get Nothing.

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

Unclose Your Mind. You Are Not A Prisoner. You Are A Bird In Flight, Searching The Skies For Dreams.

Once She Was Out Of The Car And Gone, My World Was Suddenly Hollow And Meaningless.

I Wonder How It Turns Out That We All Lead Such Different Lives. Take You And Your Sister, For Example. You're Born To The Same Parents, You Grow Up In The Same Household, You're Both Girls. How Do You End Up With Such Wildly Different Personalities?...one Puts On A Bikini Like Little Semaphore Flags And Lies By The Pool Looking Sexy, And The Other Puts On Her School Bathing Suit And Swims Her Heart Out Like A Dolphin.

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

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

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

End Of The World

Only The Dead Stay Seventeen Forever.

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.

You Are A Beautiful Person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But You Seem Always To Be Dragging Your Heart Along The Ground. From Now On, Little By Little, You Must Prepare Yourself To Face Death. If You Devote All Of Your Future Energy To Living, You Will Not Be Able To Die Well. You Must Begin To Shift Gears, A Little At A Time. Living And Dying Are, In A Sense, Of Equal Value.

One Of These Days They'll Be Making A Film Where The Whole Human Race Gets Wiped Out In A Nuclear War, But Everything Works Out In The End.

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

No Matter How Long You Stand There Examining Yourself Naked Before A Mirror, You'll Never See Reflected What's Inside.

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

If You Keep On Writing For Three Years, Every Day, You Should Be Strong. Of Course, You Have To Be Strong Mentally, Also. But In The First Place, You Have To Be Strong Physically. That Is A Very Important Thing. Physically And Mentally You Have To Be Strong.

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Florence Griffith Joyner

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