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In This World, There Is No Absolute Good, No Absolute Evil," The Man Said. "good And Evil Are Not Fixed, Stable Entities, But Are Continually Trading Places. A Good May Be Transformed Into An Evil In The Next Second. And Vice Versa. Such Was The Way Of The World That Dostoevsky Depicted In The Brothers Karamazov. The Most Important Thing Is To Maintain The Balance Between The Constantly Moving Good And Evil. If You Lean Too Much In Either Direction, It Becomes Difficult To Maintain Actual Morals. Indeed, Balance Itself Is The Good.

-Haruki Murakami

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In This World, There

Haruki Murakami

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In This World, There Is No Absolute Good, No Absolute Evil," The Man Said. "good And Evil Are Not Fixed, Stable Entities, But Are Continually Trading Places. A Good May Be Transformed Into An Evil In The Next Second. And Vice Versa. Such Was The Way Of The World That Dostoevsky Depicted In The Brothers Karamazov. The Most Important Thing Is To Maintain The Balance Between The Constantly Moving Good And Evil. If You Lean Too Much In Either Direction, It Becomes Difficult To Maintain Actual Morals. Indeed, Balance Itself Is The Good.

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You're Afraid Of Imagination And Even More Afraid Of Dreams. Afraid Of The Resposibility That Begins In Dreams. But You Have To Sleep And Dreams Are A Part Of Sleep. When You're Awake You Can Suppress Imagination But You Can't Supress Dreams.

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

How Much Do You Love Me?' Midori Asked. 'enough To Melt All The Tigers In The World To Butter,' I Said.

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

This Is One More Piece Of Advice I Have For You: Don't Get Impatient. Even If Things Are So Tangled Up You Can't Do Anything, Don't Get Desperate Or Blow A Fuse And Start Yanking On One Particular Thread Before It's Ready To Come Undone. You Have To Realize It's Going To Be A Long Process And That You'll Work On Things Slowly, One At A Time.

I'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.

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

Narrow Minds Devoid Of Imagination. Intolerance, Theories Cut Off From Reality, Empty Terminology, Usurped Ideals, Inflexible Systems. Those Are The Things That Really Frighten Me. What I Absolutely Fear And Loathe.

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

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

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

I Used To Think The Years Would Go By In Order, That You Get Older One Year At A Time. But It's Not Like That. It Happens Overnight.

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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.

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That Was The Rule. Break One Of My Rules Once, And I’m Bound To Break Many More.

I’m Free, I Think. I Shut My Eyes And Think Hard And Deep About How Free I Am, But I Can’t Really Understand What It Means. All I Know Is I’m Totally Alone. All Alone In An Unfamiliar Place, Like Some Solitary Explorer Who’s Lost His Compass And His Map. Is This What It Means To Be Free? I Don’t Know, And I Give Up Thinking About It.

And As We Live Our Lives We Discover - Drawing Toward Us The Thin Threads Attached To Each - What Has Been Lost. I Closed My Eyes And Tried To Bring To Mind As Many Beautiful Lost Things As I Could. Drawing Them Closer, Holding On To Them.

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.

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

If You Really Want To Know Something, You Have To Be Willing To Pay The Price.

Nature Is Actually Unnatural

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

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.

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

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There Are Lots Of Things We Never Understand, No Matter How Many Years We Put On, No Matter How Much Experience We Accumulate.

I Think Of Rivers, Of Tides. Forests And Water Gushing Out. Rain And Lightning. Rocks And Shadows. All Of These Are In Me.

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.

Closing Your Eyes Isn't Going To Change Anything. Nothing's Going To Disappear Just Because You Can't See What's Going On. In Fact, Things Will Even Be Worse The Next Time You Open Your Eyes. That's The Kind Of World We Live In. Keep Your Eyes Wide Open. Only A Coward Closes His Eyes. Closing Your Eyes And Plugging Up Your Ears Won't Make Time Stand Still.

Hey, What Is It With You? Why Are You So Spaced Out? You Still Haven't Answered Me." I Probably Still Haven't Completely Adapted To The World," I Said After Giving It Some Thought. "i Don't Know, I Feel Like This Isn't The Real World. The People, The Scene: They Just Don't Seem Real To Me." Midori Rested An Elbow On The Bar And Looked At Me. "there Was Something Like That In A Jim Morrison Song, I'm Pretty Sure." People Are Strange When You're A Stranger.

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

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

You Can Have Tons Of Talent, But It Won't Necessarily Keep You Fed. If You Have Sharp Instincts, Through, You'll Never Go Hungry.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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In Dreams Begins Responsiblities.

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.

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.

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

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For Me, Writing A Novel Is Like Having A Dream. Writing A Novel Lets Me Intentionally Dream While I'm Still Awake. I Can Continue Yesterday's Dream Today, Something You Can't Normally Do In Everyday Life.

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.

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.

I Wrote A Huge Number Of Letters That Spring: One A Week To Naoko, Several To Reiko, And Several More To Midori. I Wrote Letters In The Classroom, I Wrote Letters At My Desk At Home With Seagull In My Lap, I Wrote Letters At Empty Tables During My Breaks At The Italian Restaurant. It Was As If I Were Writing Letters To Hold Together The Pieces Of My Crumbling Life.

But Who Can Say What's Best? That's Why You Need To Grab Whatever Chance You Have Of Happiness Where You Find It, And Not Worry About Other People Too Much. My Experience Tells Me That We Get No More Than Two Or Three Such Chances In A Life Time, And If We Let Them Go, We Regret It For The Rest Of Our Lives.

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Passion Can’t Sustain Itself Forever.

Let The Wind Change Direction A Little Bit, And Their Cries Turned To Whispers.

There's No War That Will End All Wars.

But This Thing, Whatever It Was, This Mistlike Something, Hung There Inside My Body Like A Certain Kind Of Potential. I Wanted To Give It A Name, But The Word Refused To Come To Mind. I’m Terrible At Finding The Right Words For Things. I’m Sure Tolstoy Would Have Been Able To Come Up With Exactly The Right Word

But Still," Ayumi Said, "it Seems To Me That This World Has A Serious Shortage Of Both Logic And Kindness." "you May Be Right," Aomame Said, "but It's Too Late To Trade It In For Another One.

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.

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

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

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

Pointless Thinking Is Worse Than No Thinking At All.

What's Nurtured Slowly Grows Well.

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.

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.

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

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

Whiskey, Like A Beautiful Woman, Demands Appreciation. You Gaze First, Then It's Time To Drink.

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.

My Priority Is My Books, At Least At This Point. What I Have To Do Is Write The Narrative Of This Time.

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

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

Artists Are Those Who Can Evade The Verbose.

I Tell You, Mr. Okada, A Cold Beer At The End Of The Day Is The Best Thing Life Has To Offer. Some Choosy People Say That A Too Cold Beer Doesn't Taste Good, But I Couldn't Disagree More. The First Beer Should Be So Cold You Can't Even Taste It. The Second One Should Be A Little Less Chilled, But I Want That First One To Be Like Ice. I Want It To Be So Cold My Temples Throb With Pain. This Is My Own Personal Preference Of Course.

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Probably." "again With The Probablys." "a World Full Of Probablys," She Said.

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

So That's How We Live Our Lives. No Matter How Deep And Fatal The Loss, No Matter How Important The Thing That's Stolen From Us--that's Snatched Right Out Of Our Hands--even If We Are Left Completely Changed, With Only The Outer Layer Of Skin From Before, We Continue To Play Out Our Lives This Way, In Silence. We Draw Ever Nearer To The End Of Our Allotted Span Of Time, Bidding It Farewell As It Trails Off Behind. Repeating, Often Adroitly, The Endless Deeds Of The Everyday. Leaving Behind A Feeling Of Immeasurable Emptiness.

I Can Never Say What I Want To Say, It's Been Like This For A While Now. I Try To Say Something But All I Get Are Wrong Words - The Wrong Words Or The Exact Opposite Words From What I Mean. I Try To Correct Myself, And That Only Makes It Worse. I Lose Track Of What I Was Trying To Say To Begin With. It's Like I'm Split In Two And Playing Tag With Myself. One Half Is Chasing This Big, Fat Post. The Other Me Has The Right Words, But This Can't Catch Her.

She Was, If Anything, On The Plain Side, At Least Not The Type To Attract Men Wherever She Went. But There Was Something In Her Face That Was Meant For Me Alone. Everytime We Met, I Took A Good Look At Her. And Loved What I Saw.

It Was A Short One-paragraph Item In The Morning Edition.

I Can't Imagine How American Readers Will React To A Novel, But If The Story Is Appealing It Doesn't Matter Much If You Don't Catch All The Detail. I'm Not Too Familiar With The Geography Of Nineteenth Century London, For Instance, But I Still Enjoy Reading Dickens.

Understanding' Is Merely The Sum Total Of Our Misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding

People Fall In Love Without Reason, Without Even Wanting To. You Can't Predict It. That's Love.

Falling In Love

She Was A Keen Observer, A Precise User Of Language, Sharp-tongued And Funny. She Could Stir Your Emotions. Yes, Really, That's What She Was So Good At - Stirring People's Emotions, Moving You. And She Knew She Had This Power...i Only Realized Later. At The Time, I Had No Idea What She Was Doing To Me.

So Many Dreams, So Many Disappointments, So Many Promises. And In The End, They All Just Vanish.

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

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

It's True Though: Time Moves In Its Own Special Way In The Middle Of The Night," The Bartender Says, Loudly Striking A Book Match And Lighting A Cigarette. "you Can't Fight It.

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

Passing Moments

In Everybody’s Life There’s A Point Of No Return. And In A Very Few Cases, A Point Where You Can’t Go Forward Anymore. And When We Reach That Point, All We Can Do Is Quietly Accept The Fact. That’s How We Survive.

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

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

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.

Understanding Is But The Sum Of Misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding

A Gentleman Is Someone Who Does Not What He Wants To Do, But What He Should Do.

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

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

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

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

Most Everything You Think You Know About Me Is Nothing More Than Memories.

Is Action Merely The Incidental Product Of Thought, Or Is Thought The Consequential Product Of Action?

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.

If You Listen To The Radio For A Whole Hour There's Maybe One Decent Song. The Rest Is Mass-produced Garbage

Pain Is Inevitable. Suffering Is Optional.

When I Write About A 15-year Old, I Jump, I Return To The Days When I Was That Age. It's Like A Time Machine. I Can Remember Everything. I Can Feel The Wind. I Can Smell The Air. Very Actually. Very Vividly.

Remembers Everything

A State Of Chronic Powerlessness Eats Away At A Person

Learning Another Language Is Like Becoming Another Person.

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.

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.

Okay, Let’s Put It This Way. I Would Like To Sleep With You. But It’s Alright If I Don’t Sleep With You. What I’m Saying Is I’d Like To Be As Fair As Possible. I Don’t Want To Force Anything On Anybody, Any More Than I’d Want Anything Forced On Me. It’s Enough That I Feel Your Presence Or See Your Commas Swirling Around Me.

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

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.

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

For A Certain Kind Of Person, Love Begins From Something Tiny Or Silly. From Something Like That Or It Doesnt Begin At All.

Waiting For Your Answer Is One Of The Most Painful Things I Have Ever Been Through. At Least Let Me Know Whether Or Not I Hurt You.

I Am Nothing. I’m Like Someone Who’s Been Thrown Into The Ocean At Night, Floating All Alone. I Reach Out, But No One Is There. I Call Out, But No One Answers. I Have No Connection To Anything.

What’s More, You’re Loads Better Than You Think You Are.” “so Why Is It I Get To Thinking That Way?” I Puzzled. “that’s Because You’re Only Half-living.” She Said Briskly. “the Other Half Is Still Untapped Somewhere.

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.

"they Tell Us That The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself, But I Don't Believe That." He Said. Then, A Moment Later, He Added: "oh, The Fear Is There, All Right. It Comes To Us In Many Different Forms, At Different Times, And Overwhelms Us. But The Most Frightening Thing We Can Do At Such Times Is To Turn Our Backs On It, To Close Our Eyes. For Then We Take The Most Precious Thing Inside Us And Surrender It To Something Else. In My Case, That Something Was The Wave."

My Grandpa Always Said Asking A Question Is Embarrassing For A Moment, But Not Asking Is Embarrassing For A Lifetime.

It's A Quiet Place, So People Talk Quietly," Said Naoko. She Made A Neat Pile Of Fish Bones At The Edge Of Her Plate And Dabbed At Her Mouth With A Handkerchief. "there's No Need To Raise Your Voice Here. You Don't Have To Convince Anybody Of Anything, And You Don't Have To Attract Anyone's Attention.

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

Narratives Have The Same Power, I Think. Some Readers Of My Novels Ask Me, "why Do You Understand Me?". That's A Huge Pleasure Of Mine Because It Means That Readers And I Can Make Our Narratives Relative.

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Richard Matheson

Theodore C. Sorensen

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