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

Haruki Murakami
Let The Wind Change Direction A Little Bit, And Their Cries Turned To Whispers.
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Topic
Wind
Littles
Cry
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So For All That We Might Speak Words In Each Other's Vicinity, This Could Never Develop Into Anything That Could Be Called A Conversation. It Was As Though We Were Speaking In Different Languages. If The Dalai Lama Were On His Deathbed And The Jazz Musician Eric Dolphy Were To Try To Explain To Him The Importance Of Choosing One's Engine Oil In Accordance With Changes In The Sound Of The Bass Clarinet, That Exchange Might Have Been More Worthwhile And Effective Than My Conversations With Noboru Wataya.
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The Sun Sliced Through The Windshield, Sealing Me In Light. I Closed My Eyes And Felt The Warmth On My Eyelids. Sunlight Traveled A Long Distance To Reach This Planet; An Infinitesimal Portion Of That Sunlight Was Enough To Warm My Eyelids. I Was Moved. That Something As Insignificant As An Eyelid Had Its Place In The Workings On The Universe, That The Cosmic Order Did Not Overlook This Momentary Fact.
Distance
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Light
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Country
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Worry
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People
Secret
Littles
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Mind
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World
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Reality
Waiting
Used
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Faces
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Like A Chinese Box, The World Of The Novel Contained Smaller Worlds, And Inside Those Were Yet Smaller Worlds. Together, These Worlds Made Up A Single Universe, And The Universe Waited There In The Book To Be Discovered By The Reader.
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Loss
I Could Disappear From The Face Of The Earth, And The World Would Go On Moving Without The Slightest Twinge. Things Were Tremendously Complicated, To Be Sure, But One Thing Was Clear: No One Needed Me.
Moving
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And As The Years Have Passed, The Time Has Grown Longer. The Sad Truth Is That What I Could Recall In Five Seconds All Too Needed Ten, Then Thirty, Then A Full Minute - Like Shadows Lengthening At Dusk. Someday, I Suppose, The Shadows Will Be Swallowed Up In Darkness.
Years
Darkness
Shadow
I Am Here, Alone, At The End Of The World. I Reach Out And Touch Nothing.”.
World
End Of The World
Ends
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.
Suicide
Heart
People
Maybe Time Is Nothing At All Like A Straight Line. Perhaps It's Shaped Like A Twisted Doughnut. But For Tens Of Thousands Of Years, People Have Probably Been Seeing Time As A Straight Line That Continues On Forever. And That's The Concept They Based Their Actions On. And Until Now They Haven't Found Anything Inconvenient Or Contradictory About It. So As An Experiential Model, It's Probably Correct.
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People
Forever
If I Have Left A Wound Inside You, It Is Not Just Your Wound But Mine As Well.
Wells
Mines
Left
Beyond The Window, Some Kind Of Small, Black Thing Shot Across The Sky. A Bird, Possibly. Or It Might Have Been Someone's Soul Being Blown To The Far Side Of The World.
Sky
Bird
Soul
What Was Lost Was Lost. There Was No Retrieving It, However You Schemed, No Returning To How Things Were, No Going Back.
Lost
Between A High, Solid Wall And An Egg That Breaks Against It, I Will Always Stand On The Side Of The Egg.
Strength
Wall
Two Sides
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.
Book
Writing
Realistic
I Didn't Have Much To Say To Anybody But Kept To Myself And My Books. With My Eyes Closed, I Would Touch A Familiar Book And Draw It's Fragrance Deep Inside Me. This Was Enough To Make Me Happy.
Book
Eye
Enough
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
Life And Love
Knowing
Right Now
Between The Time The Last Train Leaves And The First Train Arrives, The Place Changes: It's Not The Same As In Daytime.
Lasts
Firsts
Daytime
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.
Spring
Home
Writing
Somewhere In His Body--perhaps In The Marrow Of His Bones--he Would Continue To Feel Her Absence.
Body
Bones
Absence
That's What The World Is , After All: An Endless Battle Of Contrasting Memories.
Memories
Battle
World
You Can’t Look Too Far Ahead. Do That And You’ll Lose Sight Of What You’re Doing And Stumble. I’m Not Saying You Should Focus Solely On The Details Right In Front Of You, Mind You. You’ve Got To Look Ahead A Bit Or Else You’ll Bump Into Something. You’ve Got To Conform To The Proper Order And At The Same Time Keep An Eye Out For What’s Ahead. That’s Critical, No Matter What You’re Doing.
Eye
Sight
Order
People Fall In Love Without Reason, Without Even Wanting To. You Can't Predict It. That's Love.
Best Love
Falling In Love
People
A Certain Something, He Felt, Had Managed To Work Its Way In Through A Tiny Opening And Was Trying To Fill A Blank Space Inside Him. The Void Was Not One That She Had Made. It Had Always Been There Inside Him. She Had Merely Managed To Shine A Special Light On It.
Space
Light
Shining
I Was Enjoying Myself Writing, Because I Don't Know What's Going To Happen When I Take A Ride Around That Corner. You Don't Know At All What You're Going To Find There. That Can Be Thrilling When You Read A Book, Especially When You're A Kid And You're Reading Stories.
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Reading
Writing
Forgive Me For Stating The Obvious, But The World Is Made Up Of All Kinds Of People.
People
Forgive Me
Forgiving
Everything. Things You Lost. Things You’re Gonna Lose. Everything. Here’s Where It All Ties Together.
Ties
Together
Lost Things
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.
Home
School
Glasses
What If I’ve Forgotten The Most Important Thing?
What If
Important
Forgotten
Hatred Is Like A Long, Dark Shadow. Not Even The Person It Falls Upon Knows Where It Comes From, In Most Cases. It Is Like A Two-edged Sword. When You Cut The Other Person, You Cut Yourself. The More Violently You Hack At The Other Person, The More Violently You Hack At Yourself. It Can Often Be Fatal. But It Is Not Easy To Dispose Of. Please Be Careful, Mr.okada. It Is Very Dangerous. Once It Has Taken Root In Your Heart, Hatred Is The Most Difficult Think In The World To Shake Off.
Fall
Taken
Heart
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.
Years
Long
Perfection
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.
Eye
Mean
Thinking
Her Voice Was Like A Line From An Old Black-and-white Jean-luc Godard Movie, Filtering In Just Beyond The Frame Of My Consciousness.
Black And White
Voice
Lines
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.
Philosophy
Years
Effort
Life Is Here, Death Is Over There. I Am Here, Not Over There.
Life Is
An Empty Shell. Those Were The First Words That Sprang To Mind. .... Something Incredibly Important - .. - Had Disappeared From Miu For Good. Leaving Behind Not Life, But Its Absence
Leaving
Mind
Important
Why?" She Screamed. "are You Crazy? You Know The English Subjunctive, You Understand Trigonometry, You Can Read Marx, And You Don't Know The Answer To Something As Simple As That? Why Do You Even Have To Ask? Why Do You Have To Make A Girl Say Something Like This? I Like You More Than I Like Him, That's All. I Wish I Had Fallen In Love With Somebody A Little More Handsome, Of Course. But I Didn't. I Fell In Love With You!
Girl
I Like You
Crazy
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.
Running
Mean
Opposites
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.
Tired
Simple
I Love Myself
I Hate Requests. They Make Me Feel Unhappy. It's Like When I Take A Book Out Of The Library. As Soon As I Start To Read It, All I Can Think About Is When I'll Finish It.
Hate
Book
Thinking
Irrepressible Curiosity Vied With An Instinctive Fear.
Curiosity
Irrepressible
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.
Struggle
Opposites
Forget
I Don’t Know, I Don’t Feel Right Unless I’ve Got The Sea And Mountains Nearby. People Are Mostly A Product Of Where They Were Born And Raised. How You Think And Feel’s Always Linked To The Lay Of The Land, The Temperature. The Prevailing Winds, Even.
Thinking
Wind
Sea
Learning Another Language Is Like Becoming Another Person.
Inspirational
Change
Learning
My Heroes Don't Have Anything Special. They Have Something To Tell Other People But They Don't Know How, So They Talk To Themselves.
Hero
People
Special
As Long As There's Such A Thing As Time, Everybody's Damaged In The End, Changed Into Something Else. It Always Happens, Sooner Or Later.
Long
Ends
Changed
Each Person Feels Pain In His Own Way, Each Has His Own Scars.
Pain
Way
Scar
What Would Tomorrow Bring? I Wondered. Both Hands On The Wheel, I Closed My Eyes. I Didn’t Feel Like I Was In My Own Body; My Body Was Just A Lonely, Temporary Container I Happened To Be Borrowing. What Would Become Of Me Tomorrow I Did Not Know.
Lonely
Eye
Hands
Fairness Is A Concept That Holds Only In Limited Situations. Yet We Want The Concept To Extend To Everything, In And Out Of Phase. From Snails To Hardware Stores To Married Life. Maybe No One Finds It, Or Even Misses It, But Fairness Is Like Love. What Is Given Has Nothing To Do With What We Seek.
Like Love
Missing
Phases
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.
Attitude
Hard Work
Luck
She's Always Polite And Kind, But Her Words Lack The Kind Of Curiosity And Excitement You'd Normally Expect. Her True Feelings- Assuming Such Things Exist- Remain Hidden Away. Except For When A Practical Sort Of Decision Has To Be Made, She Never Gives Her Personal Opinion About Anything. She Seldom Talks About Herself, Instead Letting Others Talk, Nodding Warmly As She Listens. But Most People Start To Feel Vaguely Uneasy When Talking With Her, As If They Suspect They're Wasting Her Time, Trampling On Her Private, Graceful, Dignified World. And That Impression Is, For The Most Part, Correct.
Personal Opinions
Talking
People
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.
Views
Mind
Mountain
I Saw That She Was Crying. Before I Knew It, I Was Kissing Her. Others On The Platform Were Staring At Us, But I Didn't Care About Such Things Anymore. We Were Alive, She And I. And All We Had To Think About Was Continuing To Live.
Kissing
Thinking
Alive
Sometimes Taking Time Is Actually A Shortcut.
Shortcuts
Sometimes
Take Time
You Can Hide Memories, But You Can’t Erase The History That Produced Them.
Memories
Erase
Colorless
It's Just Like Sex; When [a Book Is] Finished, It's Finished.
Sex
Book
Writing
Not That We Were Incompatible: We Just Had Nothing To Talk About.
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.
Heart
Evil
May
In Real Life Things Don’t Go So Smoothly. At Certain Points In Our Lives, When We Really Need A Clear-cut Solution, The Person Who Knocks At Our Door Is, More Likely Than Not, A Messenger Bearing Bad News.
Real
Cutting
Doors
Never Trust A Man Who Carries A Handkerchief, I Always Say. One Of Many Prejudicial Rules Of Thumb.
Men
Thumbs
Never Trust
It's Good When Food Tastes Good, It's Kind Of Like Proof You're Alive.
Alive
Taste
Kind
If You Try To Use Your Head To Think About Things, People Don't Want To Have Anything To Do With You
Thinking
People
Trying
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.
Sleep
Want
Way
I’ve Never Once Thought About How I Was Going To Die,” She Said. “i Can’t Think About It. I Don’t Even Know How I’m Going To Live.
Thinking
Said
Dies
People's Memories Are Maybe The Fuel They Burn To Stay Alive.
Life
Memories
People
Everything, Everything Seemed Once-upon-a-time.
Once Upon A Time
That’s What Love’s All About. You’re The Only One Having Those Wonderful Feelings, But You Have To Go It Alone As You Wander Through The Dark Your Mind And Body Have To Bear It All. All By Yourself.
Dark
Feelings
Mind
What I Feel For Her Is A Wholly Different Emotion. It Stands And Walks On Its Own, Living And Breathing And Throbbing And Shaking Me To The Roots Of My Being.
Breathing
Roots
Different
Is This What It Means To Go Back To Square One? Most Likely. He Had Nothing Left To Lose, Other Than His Life.
Mean
Squares
Left
That's What We All Do: Endlessly Take The Long Way Around.
Long
Way
Long Way
If You Can’t Understand It Without An Explanation, You Can’t Understand It With An Explanation.
Life
Explanation
Ifs
I'm The Kind Of Person Who Has To Totally Commit To Whatever I Do.
Kind
Commit
Persons
It Occurred To Me What A Simple Thing Reality Is, How Easy It Is To Make It Work. It's Just Reality. Just Housework. Just A Home. Like Running A Simple Machine. Once You Learn To Run It, It's Just A Matter Of Repetition. You Push This Button And Pull That Lever. You Adjust A Gauge, Put On The Lid, Set The Timer. The Same Thing, Over And Over.
Running
Home
Simple
"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."
Believe
Eye
Different
I Think You Still Love Me, But We Can’t Escape The Fact That I’m Not Enough For You. I Knew This Was Going To Happen. So I’m Not Blaming You For Falling In Love With Another Woman. I’m Not Angry, Either. I Should Be, But I’m Not. I Just Feel Pain. A Lot Of Pain. I Thought I Could Imagine How Much This Would Hurt, But I Was Wrong.
Love
Breakup
Hurt
We Can, If We So Choose, Wander Aimlessly Over The Continent Of The Arbitrary. Rootless As Some Winged Seed Blown About On A Serendipitous Spring Breeze.
Spring
Arbitrary
Breeze
Everyone Just Keeps On Disappearing. Some Things Vanish, Like They Were Cut Away. Others Fade Slowly Into The Mist. And All That Remains Is A Desert.
Cutting
Desert
Disappear
Let The Wind Change Direction A Little Bit, And Their Cries Turned To Whispers.
Wind
Littles
Cry
I Couldn't Tell Wether The Hole That Opened Up Inside Me Was From Missing You Or From The Change Of Season
Missing
Holes
Seasons Change
Most Runners Run Not Because They Want To Live Longer, But Because They Want To Live Life To The Fullest.
Running
Live Life
Endurance
Not Everything Was Lost In The Flow Of Time
Flow
Lost
What You See With Your Eyes Is Not Necessarily Real.
Real
Eye
Quake
The Whole Terrible Fight Occured In The Area Of Imagination. That Is The Precise Location Of Our Battlefield. It Is There, That We Experience Our Victories And Defeats.
Fighting
Victory And Defeat
Imagination
The Passage Of Time Will Usually Extract The Venom Of Most Things And Render Them Harmless
Venom
Passage Of Time
Passages
I Am 55 Years Old Now. It Takes Three Years To Write One Book. I Don't Know How Many Books I Will Be Able To Write Before I Die. It Is Like A Countdown. So With Each Book I Am Praying - Please Let Me Live Until I Am Finished.
Book
Writing
Years
If I Stayed Here, Something Inside Me Would Be Lost Forever—something I Couldn't Afford To Lose. It Was Like A Vague Dream, A Burning, Unfulfilled Desire. The Kind Of Dream People Have Only When They're Seventeen.
Dream
People
Forever
I Probably Still Haven’t Completely Adapted To The World. 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.
Real
People
World
The Years Nineteen And Twenty Are A Crucial Stage In The Maturation Of Character, And If You Allow Yourself To Become Warped When You're That Age, It Will Cause You Pain When You're Older.
Pain
Character
Years
Have Your Dream...what You Need Now More Than Anything Is Discipline. Cast Off Mere Words. Words Turn Into Stone. (from Thailand)
Dream
Discipline
Needs
The Things She Most Wanted To Tell Him Would Lose Their Meaning The Moment She Put Them Into Words.
Moments
Wanted
Most Wanted
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
Wind
Mind
In Order To Pin Down Reality As Realilty, We Need Another Reality To Relativize The First. Yet That Other Reality Requires A Third Reality To Serve As Its Grounding. An Endless Chain Is Created Within Our Consciousness, And It Is The Maintenance Of This Chain Which Produces The Sensation That We Are Actually Here, That We Ourselves Exist.
Reality
Order
Needs
I Often Dream About The Dolphin Hotel.
Dream
Dolphins
Hotel
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.
Dream
Butterfly
Artist
Even Chance Meetings Are The Result Of Karma… Things In Life Are Fated By Our Previous Lives. That Even In The Smallest Events There’s No Such Thing As Coincidence.
Karma
Things In Life
Events
I Began To Draw An Invisible Boundary Between Myself And Other People. No Matter Who I Was Dealing With. I Maintained A Set Distance, Carefully Monitoring The Person’s Attitude So That They Wouldn’t Get Any Closer. I Didn’t Easily Swallow What Other People Told Me. My Only Passions Were Books And Music
Attitude
Distance
Book
Losing You Is Most Difficult For Me, But The Nature Of My Love For You Is What Matters. If It Distorts Into Half-truth, Then Perhaps It Is Better Not To Love You. I Must Keep My Mind But Loose You.
Love You
What Matters
Mind
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.
Sex
Sleep
Self
We Were Young, And We Had No Need For Prophecies. Just Living Was Itself An Act Of Prophecy.
Needs
Young
Prophecy
Autumn Finally Arrived. And When It Did, I Came To A Decision. Something Had To Give: I Couldn't Keep On Living Like This.
Autumn
Giving
Decision
Where I Went In My Travels, It's Impossible For Me To Recall. I Remember The Sights And Sounds And Smells Clearly Enough, But The Names Of The Towns Are Gone, As Well As Any Sense Of The Order In Which I Traveled From Place To Place.
Sight
Order
Names
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.
Running
Distance
Thinking
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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