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It's A Question Of Attitude. If You Really Work At Something You Can Do It Up To A Point. If You Really Work At Being Happy You Can Do It Up To A Point. But Anything More Than That You Can't. Anything More Than That Is Luck.

-Haruki Murakami

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It's A Question Of

Haruki Murakami

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It's A Question Of Attitude. If You Really Work At Something You Can Do It Up To A Point. If You Really Work At Being Happy You Can Do It Up To A Point. But Anything More Than That You Can't. Anything More Than That Is Luck.

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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.

Our Memory Is Made Up Of Our Individual Memories And Our Collective Memories. The Two Are Intimately Linked. And History Is Our Collective Memory. If Our Collective Memory Is Taken From Us - Is Rewritten - We Lose The Ability To Sustain Our True Selves.

You Make Do With What You Have. As You Age You Learn Even To Be Happy With What You Have.

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.

We Were, The Two Of Us, Still Fragmentary Beings, Just Beginning To Sense The Presence Of An Unexpected, To Be-aquired Reality That Would Fill Us And Make Us Whole.

Time Really Is One Big Continuous Cloth, No? We Habitually Cut Out Pieces Of Time To Fit Us, So We Tend To Fool Ourselves Into Thinking That Time Is Our Size, But It Really Goes On And On.

Sometimes I Feel Like A Caretaker Of A Museum -- A Huge, Empty Museum Where No One Ever Comes, And I'm Watching Over It For No One But Myself.

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

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.

There's No Such Thing As Perfect Writing, Just Like There's No Such Thing As Perfect Despair.

There's No War That Will End All Wars.

I Lost Some Of My Friends Because I Got So Famous, People Who Just Assumed That I Would Be Different Now. I Felt Like Everyone Hated Me. That Is The Most Unhappy Time Of My Life.

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.

Listen. I May Not Be Much, But I'm All I've Got. Maybe You Need A Magnifying Glass To Find My Face In My High School Graduation Photo. Maybe I Haven't Got Any Family Or Friends. Yes, Yes, I Know All That. But, Strange As It Might Seem, I'm Not Entirely Dissatisfied With Life... I Feel Pretty Much At Home With What I Am. I Don't Want To Go Anywhere. I Don't Want Any Unicorns Behind Fences.

Whenever I Write A Novel, Music Just Sort Of Naturally Slips In (much Like Cats Do, I Suppose).

You Have To Make An Effort To Always Look At The Good Side, Always Think About The Good Things. Then You've Got Nothing To Be Afraid Of. If Something Bad Comes Up, You Do More Thinking At That Point.

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

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

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

I Wrote My First Two Long Novels And An Anthology Of Short Narratives, When I Was A Manager Of My Own Jazz Bar. There Was Not Enough Time To Write And I Didn't Know How To Write Novels. Therefore, I Made Written Collages Of Aphorisms And Rags.

All Right, Then, I Thought: Here I Am In The Bottom Of A Well.

It Made Her Think Of Laika, The Dog. The Man-made Satellite Streaking Soundlessly Across The Blackness Of Outer Space. The Dark, Lustrous Eyes Of The Dog Gazing Out The Tiny Window. In The Infinite Loneliness Of Space, What Could The Dog Possibly Be Looking At?

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?

Like Flowers Scattered In A Storm, A Man's Life Is A Long Farewell.

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

Letters Are Just Pieces Of Paper," I Said. "burn Them, And What Stays In Your Heart Will Stay; Keep Them, And What Vanishes Will Vanish.

Sometimes I Get Real Lonely Sleeping With You.

If Writing Novels Is Like Planting A Forest, Then Writing Short Stories Is More Like Planting A Garden.

From The Girl Who Sat Before Me Now...surged A Fresh And Physical Life Force. She Was Like A Small Animal That Has Popped Into The World With The Coming Of Spring. Her Eyes Moved Like An Independent Organism With Joy, Laughter, Anger, Amazement, And Despair. I Hadn't Seen A Face So Vivid And Expressive In Ages, And I Enjoyed Watching It Live And Move.

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

You Know What I'd Really Like To Do The Most Right Now? Climb Up To The Top Of Some High Place Like The Pyramids. The Highest Place I Can Find. Where You Can See Forever. Stand On The Very Top, Look All Around The World, See All The Scenery, And See With My Own Eyes What's Been Lost From The World.

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.

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

In Japan They Prefer The Realistic Style. They Like Answers And Conclusions, But My Stories Have None. I Want To Leave Them Wide Open To Every Possibility. I Think My Readers Understand That Openness.

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.

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.

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)

Between The Time The Last Train Leaves And The First Train Arrives, The Place Changes: It's Not The Same As In Daytime.

You Are Entering A Phase Of Your Life In Which Many Different Things Will Occur...bad Things That Seem Good At First And Good Things That Seem Bad At First.

And, Well, Mine Are Kind Of On The Heavy Side Anyway. The First Day Or Two, I Don't Want To Do Anything. Make Sure You Keep Away From Me Then.' I'd Like To, But How Can I Tell?' I Asked. O.k., I'll Wear A Hat For A Couple Of Days After My Period Starts. A Red One. That Should Work,' She Said With A Laugh. 'if You See Me On The Street And I'm Wearing A Red Hat, Don't Talk To Me, Just Run Away.

There Is Nothing In This World That Never Takes A Step Outside A Person's Heart.

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

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.

One Foot In Front Of The Other. Repeat As Often As Necessary To Finish.

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.

Irrepressible Curiosity Vied With An Instinctive Fear.

They Sat On A Park Bench, Held Hands, And Told Each Other Their Stories Hour After Hour. They Were Not Lonely Anymore. They Had Found And Been Found By Their 100% Perfect Other. What A Wonderful Thing It Is To Find And Be Found By Your 100% Perfect Other. It's A Miracle, A Cosmic Miracle.

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.

Sheep Hurt My Father, And Through My Father, Sheep Have Also Hurt Me.

Understanding Is But The Sum Of Misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding

Artists Are Those Who Can Evade The Verbose.

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

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.

Once, When I Was Younger, I Thought I Could Be Someone Else. I'd Move To Casablanca, Open A Bar, And I'd Meet Ingrid Bergman. Or More Realistically - Whether Actually More Realistic Or Not - I'd Tune In On A Better Life, Something More Suited To My True Self. Toward That End, I Had To Undergo Training. I Read The Greening Of America, And I Saw Easy Rider Three Times. But Like A Boat With A Twisted Rudder, I Kept Coming Back To The Same Place. I Wasn't Anywhere. I Was Myself, Waiting On The Shore For Me To Return.

I Started Writing At The Kitchen Table After Midnight. It Took Ten Months To Finish That First Book; I Sent It To A Publisher And I Got Some Kind Of Prize, So It Was Like A Dream - I Was Surprised To Find It Happening.

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.

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.

We're All Kind Of Weird And Twisted And Drowning.

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

Chance Encounters Are What Keep Us Going.

Genius Or Fool, You Don't Live In The World Alone. You Can Hide Underground Or You Can Build A Wall Around Yourself, But Somebody's Going To Come Along And Screw Up The Works.

They Take The Circuits Out Of People’s Brains That Make It Possible For Them To Think For Themselves. Their World Is Like The One That George Orwell Depicted In His Novel. I’m Sure You Realize That There Are Plenty Of People Who Are Looking For Exactly That Kind Of Brain Death. It Makes Life A Lot Easier. You Don’t Have To Think About Difficult Things, Just Shut Up And Do What Your Superiors Tell You To Do.

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

You Know, Eating's Much More Important Than Most People Think. There Comes A Time In Your Life When You've Just Got To Have Something Super-delicious. And When You're Standing At That Crossroads Your Whole Life Can Change, Depending On Which One You Go Into - The Good Restaurant Or The Awful One.

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

Stories Lie Deep In Our Souls. Stories Lie So Deep At The Bottom Of Our Hearts That They Can Bring People Together On The Deepest Level. When I Write A Novel, I Go Into Such Depths.

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.

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.

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

You Can Hide Memories, But You Can’t Erase The History That Produced Them.

That's Gotta Be One Of The Principles Behind Reality. Accepting Things That Are Hard To Comprehend, And Leaving Them That Way.

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

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.

What Do You Mean, 'playing Really Creatively'? Can You Give Me An Example?" "hmm, Let's See ... You Send The Music Deep Enough Into Your Heart So That It Makes Your Body Undergo A Kind Of A Physical Shift, And Simultaneously The Listener's Body Also Undergoes The Same Kind Of Physical Shift. It's Giving Birth To That Kind Of Shared State. Probably.

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

Far Away, I Could Hear Them Lapping Up My Brains. Like Macbeth's Witches, The Three Lithe Cats Surrounded My Broken Head, Slurping Up That Thick Soup Inside. The Tips Of Their Rough Tongues Licked The Soft Folds Of My Mind. And With Each Lick My Consciousness Flickered Like A Flame And Faded Away.

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

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

I Collect Records. And Cats. I Don't Have Any Cats Right Now. But If I'm Taking A Walk And I See A Cat, I'm Happy.

It Takes Years To Build Up, It Takes Moments To Destroy.

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?

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

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

Better To Be A First-class Matchbox Than A Second-class Match.

I Would Stare At The Grains Of Light Suspended In That Silent Space, Struggling To See Into My Own Heart. What Did I Want? And What Did Others Want From Me? But I Could Never Find The Answers. Sometimes I Would Reach Out And Try To Grasp The Grains Of Light, But My Fingers Touched Nothing.

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.

Never Let The Darkness Or Negativity Outside Affect Your Inner Self. Just Wait Until Morning Comes And The Bright Light Will Drown Out The Darkness.

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

In Dreams You Don't Need To Make Any Distinctions Between Things. Not At All. Boundaries Don't Exist. So In Dreams There Are Hardly Ever Collisions. Even If There Are, They Don't Hurt. Reality Is Different. Reality Bites. Reality, Reality.

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.

He Was Silent For Thirty Seconds, Maybe A Minute. I Uncrossed My Legs Under The Table And Wondered If This Was The Right Moment To Leave. It Was As If My Whole Life Revolved Around Trying To Judge The Right Point In A Conversation To Say Goodbye.

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

There Wasn't A Cloud In The Sky, No Wind, And Everything Was Quiet Around Us - All We Could Hear Were Birds Chirping In The Woods. The War Seemed Like Something In A Faraway Land That Had Nothing To Do With Us. We Sang Songs As We Hiked Up The Hill, Sometimes Imitating The Birds We Heard. Except For The Fact That The War Was Still Going On, It Was A Perfect Morning.

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

I Have A Million Things To Talk To You About. All I Want In This World Is You. I Want To See You And Talk. I Want The Two Of Us To Begin Everything From The Beginning.

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.

Time Flows In Strange Ways On Sundays, And Sights Become Mysteriously Distorted.

I'm Not Afraid To Die. What I'm Afraid Of Is Having Reality Get The Better Of Me, Of Having Reality Leave Me Behind.

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

It's A Dark, Cool, Quiet Place. A Basement In Your Soul. And That Place Can Sometimes Be Dangerous To The Human Mind. I Can Open The Door And Enter That Darkness, But I Have To Be Very Careful. I Can Find My Story There. Then I Bring That Thing To The Surface, Into The Real World.

I'm Not So Weird To Me.

Everything, Everything Seemed Once-upon-a-time.

Once Upon A Time

When There's Nothing To Do, You Do Nothing Slowly And Intently.

And Her Sleep Was Too Long And Deep For That:so Deep That She Left Her Normal Reality Behind.

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.

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.

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

The Fresh Smell Of Coffee Soon Wafted Through The Apartment, The Smell That Separates Night From Day.

In The End, Like So Many Beautiful Promises In Our Lives, That Dinner Date Never Came To Be.

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.

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

I'll Write To You. A Super-long Letter, Like In An Old-fashioned Novel

Everything Just Blows Me Away.

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've Translated A Lot Of American Literature Into Japanese, And I Think That What Makes A Good Translator Is, Above All, A Feel For Language And Also A Great Affection For The Work You're Translating. If One Of Those Elements Is Missing The Translation Won't Be Worth Much.

Most Runners Run Not Because They Want To Live Longer, But Because They Want To Live Life To The Fullest.

Among The Many Values In Life, I Appreciate Freedom Most.

No Matter What They Wish For, No Matter How Far They Go, People Can Never Be Anything But Themselves. That's All.

Does G Get Angry Because It Follows F In The Alphabet? Does Page 68 In A Book Start A Revolution Because It Follows 67?

Spend Your Money On The Things Money Can Buy. Spend Your Time On The Things Money Can’t Buy.

In His Own Way, He's Lived Life With All The Intensity He Could Muster.

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

It’s Pretty Thin, The Wall Separating Healthy Confidence And Unhealthy Pride.

...most People In The World Don't Really Use Their Brains To Think. And People Who Don't Think Are The Ones Who Don't Listen To Others.

You Might Think You Made A New World Or A New Self, But Your Old Self Is Always Gonna Be There, Just Below The Surface, And If Something Happens, It'll Stick Its Head Out And Say 'hi.' You Don't Seem To Realize That. You Were Made Somewhere Else.

A Girl Doesn't Always Want To Go Out, You Know, Mr. Wind-up Bird. Sometimes She Feels Like Being Nasty--like, If The Guy's Gonna Wait, Let Him Really Wait.

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.

When I'm Running I Don't Have To Talk To Anybody And Don't Have To Listen To Anybody. This Is A Part Of My Day I Can't Do Without.

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.

My Short Stories Are Like Soft Shadows I Have Set Out In The World, Faint Footprints I Have Left. I Remember Exactly Where I Set Down Each And Every One Of Them, And How I Felt When I Did. Short Stories Are Like Guideposts To My Heart.

Things May Look Different To You Than They Did Before. I've Had That Experience Myself. But Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Only One Reality.

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.

Anyone Who Falls In Love Is Searching For The Missing Pieces Of Themselves. So Anyone Who's In Love Gets Sad When They Think Of Their Lover. It's Like Stepping Back Inside A Room You Have Fond Memories Of, One You Haven't Seen In A Long Time.

Strange And Mysterious Things, Though, Aren't They - Earthquakes? We Take It For Granted That The Earth Beneath Our Feet Is Solid And Stationary. We Even Talk About People Being 'down To Earth' Or Having Their Feet Firmly Planted On The Ground. But Suddenly One Day We See That It Isn't True. The Earth, The Boulders, That Are Supposed To Be Solid, All Of A Sudden Turn As Mushy As Liquid - From The Short Story "thailand

Mysterious Things

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

Don't Tell Me Anymore. You Should Have Your Dream, As The Old Woman Told You To. I Understand How You Feel, But If You Put Those Feelings Into Words They Will Turn Into Lies. (from Thailand)

You Don't Have To Judge The Whole World By Your Own Standards. Not Everybody Is Like You, You Know.

Spending Plenty Of Time On Something Can Be The Most Sophisticated Form Of Revenge.

Well, Finally, The Events I've Been Through Have Been Tremendously Complicated. All Kinds Of Characters Have Come On The Scene, And Strange Things Have Happened One After Another, To The Point Where, If I Try To Think About Them In Order, I Lose Track.

If Writing Novels Is Like Planting A Forest, Then Writing Short Stories Is More Like Planting A Garden. The Two Processes Complement Each Other, Creating A Complete Landscape That I Treasure. The Green Foliage Of The Trees Casts A Pleasant Shade Over The Earth, And The Wind Rustles The Leaves, Which Are Sometimes Dyed A Brilliant Gold. Meanwhile, In The Garden, Buds Appear On The Flowers, And Colorful Petals Attract Bees And Butterflies, Reminding Us Of The Subtle Transition From One Season To The Next.

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.

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

If I Used Being Busy As An Excuse Not To Run, I'd Never Run Again. I Have Only A Few Reasons To Keep On Running, And A Truckload Of Them To Quit.

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.

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

You Know What Girls Are Like. They Turn Twenty Or Twenty-one And All Of A Sudden They Start Having These Concrete Ideas. They Get Super Realistic. And When That Happens, Everything That Seemed So Sweet And Lovable About Them Begins To Look Ordinary And Depressing.

I'm Tired Of Living Unable To Love Anyone. I Don't Have A Single Friend - Not One. And, Worst Of All, I Can't Even Love Myself. Why Is That? Why Can't I Love Myself? It's Because I Can't Love Anyone Else. A Person Learns How To Love Himself Through The Simple Acts Of Loving And Being Loved By Someone Else. Do You Understand What I Am Saying? A Person Who Is Incapable Of Loving Another Cannot Properly Love Himself.

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.

There's Not Much You Can Do About Time - It Just Keeps On Passing. But Experience? Don't Tell Me That. I'm Not Proud Of It, But I Don't Have Any Sexual Desire. And What Sort Of Experience Can A Writer Have If She Doesn't Feel Passion? It'd Be Like A Chef Without An Appetite.

You Have To Wait Until Tomorrow To Find Out What Tomorrow Will Bring.

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.

Now For A Good Twelve-hour Sleep, I Told Myself. Twelve Solid Hours. Let Birds Sing, Let People Go To Work. Somewhere Out There, A Volcano Might Blow, Israeli Commandos Might Decimate A Palestinian Village. I Couldn't Stop It. I Was Going To Sleep.

As Long As I Stared At The Clock, At Least The World Remained In Motion. Not A Very Consequential World, But In Motion Nonetheless. And As Long As I Knew The World Was Still In Motion, I Knew I Existed. Not A Very Consequential Existence, But An Existence Nonetheless. It Struck Me As Wanting That Someone Should Confirm His Own Existence Only By The Hands Of An Electric Wall Clock. There Had To Be A More Cognitive Means Of Confirmation. But Try As I Might, Nothing Less Facile Came To Mind.

Dreams Come From The Past, Not From The Future. Dreams Shouldn't Control You--you Should Control Them.

I'm Scared," She Said. "these Days I Feel Like A Snail Without A Shell." "i'm Scared Too," I Said. "i Feel Like A Frog Without Any Webs." She Looked Up And Smiled. Wordlessly We Walked Over To A Shaded Part Of The Building And Held Each Other And Kissed, A Shell-less Snail And A Webless Frog.

With Luck, It Might Even Snow For Us.

Find Me Now. Before Someone Else Does.

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

Life: I'll Never Understand It.

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.

Wherever There's Hope There's A Trial.

Mountains, According To The Angle Of View, The Season, The Time Of Day, The Beholder's Frame Of Mind, Or Any One Thing, Can Effectively Change Their Appearance. Thus, It Is Essential To Recognize That We Can Never Know More Than One Side, One Small Aspect Of A Mountain.

The Rain That Fell On The City Runs Down The Dark Gutters And Empties Into The Sea Without Even Soaking The Ground

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

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.

When I Wake Up, My Pillow’s Cold And Damp With Tears. But Tears For What? I Have No Idea.

In His Or Her Own Way, Everyone I Saw Before Me Looked Happy. Whether They Were Really Happy Or Just Looked It, I Couldn't Tell. But They Did Look Happy On This Pleasant Early Afternoon In Late September, And Because Of That I Felt A Kind Of Loneliness New To Me, As If I Were The Only One Here Who Was Not Truly Part Of The Scene.

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.

If You Never Noticed, It Never Happened.

Each Day The Sun Would Rise And Set, The Flag Would Be Raised And Lowered. Each Sunday I Would Have A Date With My Dead Friend’s Girl. I Had No Idea What I Was Doing Or What I Was Going To Do.

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

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

I Am Worrying About My Country. I Feel I Have A Responsibility As A Novelist To Do Something.

Only People Who Have Been Discriminated Against Can Really Know How Much It Hurts. Each Person Feels The Pain In His Own Way, Each Has His Own Scars. So I Think I'm As Concerned About Fairness And Justice As Anybody. But What Disgusts Me Even More Are People Who Have No Imagination. The Kind T. S. Elliot Calls 'hollow Men'. People Who Fill Up That Lack Of Imagination With Heartless Bits Of Straw, Not Even Aware Of What They're Doing. Callous People Who Throw A Lot Of Empty Words At You, Trying To Force You To Do What You Don't Want To.

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.

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.'

Has The Dark Shadow Really Disappeared? Or Is It Inside Me, Concealed, Waiting For Its Chance To Reappear? Like A Clever Thief Hidden Inside A House, Breathing Quietly, Waiting Until Everyone’s Asleep. I Have Looked Deep Inside Myself, Trying To Detect Something That Might Be There. But Just As Our Consciousness Is A Maze, So Too Is Our Body. Everywhere You Turn There’s Darkness, And A Blind Spot. Everywhere You Find Silent Hints, Everywhere A Surprise Is Waiting For You.

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

I Always Feel Like I'm Struggling To Become Someone Else. Like I'm Trying To Find A New Place, Grab Hold Of A New Life, A New Personality. I Guess It's Part Of Growing Up; It's Also An Attempt To Reinvent Myself.

Autumn Finally Arrived. And When It Did, I Came To A Decision. Something Had To Give: I Couldn't Keep On Living Like This.

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

When Microorganisms Die, They Make Oil; When Huge Timbers Fall, They Make Coal. But Everything Here Was Pure, Unadulterated Rubbish That Didn't Make Anything. Where Does A Busted Videodeck Get You?

As Long As An Individual's Alive, He Will Undergo Experience In Some Form Or Other, And Those Experiences Are Stored Up Instant By Instant. To Stop Experiencin' Is To Die.

I Don't Think Of Myself As An Artist. I'm Just A Guy Who Can Write.

Sometimes I Find It Too Hot To Run, And Sometimes Too Cold. Or Too Cloudy. But I Still Go Running. I Know That If I Didn't Go Running, I Wouldn't Go The Next Day Either. It's Not In Human Nature To Take Unnecessary Burdens Upon Oneself, So One's Body Soon Becomes Disaccustomed. It Mustn't Do That. It's The Same With Writing. I Write Every Day So That My Mind Doesn't Become Disaccustomed.

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.

Sometimes When I Think Of Life, I Feel Like A Piece Of Driftwood Washed Up On Shore.

As We Go Through Life We Gradually Discover Who We Are, But The More We Discover, The More We Lose Ourselves.

Please Remember: Things Are Not What They Seem.

Things Are Not What They Seem

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

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.

If There's Any Guy Crazy Enough To Attack Me, I'm Going To Show Him The End Of The World -- Close Up. I'm Going To Let Him See The Kingdom Come With His Own Eyes. I'm Going To Send Him Straight To The Southern Hemisphere And Let The Ashes Of Death Rain All Over Him And The Kangaroos And The Wallabies.

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.

Still, In The End, We All Die Just The Same.

Can'ttrustpeople. Won'tdoanygood. They'llkillyoueverytime. They'llkilleachother. They'llkilleveryone.

That's Wrong," She Declared. "everyone Must Have One Thing That They Can Excel At. It's Just A Matter Of Drawing It Out, Isn't It? But School Doesn't Know How To Draw It Out. It Crushes The Gift. It's No Wonder Most People Never Get To Be What They Want To Be. They Just Get Ground Down.

And So They Parted, She To The East, And He To The West. The Test They Had Agreed Upon, However, Was Utterly Unnecessary. They Should Never Have Undertaken It, Because They Really And Truly Were Each Other's 100% Perfect Lovers, And It Was A Miracle That They Had Ever Met. But It Was Impossible For Them To Know This, Young As They Were. The Cold, Indifferent Waves Of Fate Proceeded To Toss Them Unmercifully.

Someone Who Can Search For Something Is Happy. Searching Gives A Meaning To Life. Nowadays It’s Not So Easy To Find Something You Might Be Looking For. The Most Important Thing, However, Is The Search Itself, The Way You Take. It’s Not So Important Where It Leads. That’s Why My Characters Are Always Looking For Something, Maybe Only A Cat, A Sheep Or A Wife, But That Is At Least The Beginning Of A Story.

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

There Are Many Things We Only See Clearly In Retrospect.

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