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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.

-Haruki Murakami

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Listen - God Only

Haruki Murakami

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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.

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Certain Kinds Of Knowledge Rob People Of Their Sleep.

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.

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.

For A While" Is A Phrase Whose Length Can't Be Measured.at Least By The Person Who's Waiting.

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.

So This Was How Secrets Got Started, I Thought To Myself. People Constructed Them Little By Little. I Had Not Consciously Intended To Keep May Kasahara A Secret From Kumiko. My Relationship With Her Was Not That Big A Deal: Whether I Mentioned It Or Not Was Of No Consequence. Once It Had Flown Down A Certain Delicate Channel, However, It Had Become Cloaked In The Opacity Of Secretiveness, Whatever My Original Intention Had Have Been.

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

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

Even Castles In The Sky Can Do With A Fresh Coat Of Paint.

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.

I Realize Full Well How Hard It Must Be To Go On Living Alone In A Place From Which Someone Has Left You, But There Is Nothing So Cruel In This World As The Desolation Of Having Nothing To Hope For.

What's Nurtured Slowly Grows Well.

The Sad Truth Is That Certain Types Of Things Can't Go Backward. Once They Start Going Forward, No Matter What You Do, They Can't Go Back The Way They Were. If Even One Little Thing Goes Awry, Then That's How It Will Stay Forever.

The Silence Grew Deeper, So Deep That If You Listened Carefully You Might Very Well Catch The Sound Of The Earth Revolving On Its Axis.

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.

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.

I'm Not Trying To Imply I Can Keep Up This Silent, Isolated Facade All The Time. Sometimes The Wall I've Erected Around Me Comes Crumbling Down. It Doesn't Happen Very Often, But Sometimes, Before I Even Realize What's Going On, There I Am--naked And Defenseless And Totally Confused. At Times Like That I Always Feel An Omen Calling Out To Me, Like A Dark, Omnipresent Pool Of Water. ~page 10

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

I Want To Write Stories That Are Different From The Ones I've Written So Far, Junpei Thought: I Want To Write About People Who Dream And Wait For The Night To End, Who Long For The Light So They Can Hold The Ones They Love. But Right Now I Have To Stay Here And Keep Watch Over This Woman And This Girl. I Will Never Let Anyone-not Anyone-try To Put Them Into That Crazy Box- Not Even If The Sky Should Fall Or The Earth Crack Open With A Roar.

How Many Sundays - How Many Hundreds Of Sundays Like This - Lay Ahead Of Me? “quiet, Peaceful, And Lonely,” I Said Aloud To Myself. On Sundays, I Didn't Wind My Spring.

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

The Honour Of Physical Decline Is Waiting, And You Have To Get Used To That Reality.

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.

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

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.

You Are 27 Or 28 Right? It Is Very Tough To Live At That Age. When Nothing Is Sure. I Have Sympathy With You.

Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?

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

Shakespeare Said It Best,' Tamaru Said Quietly As He Gazed At That Lumpish, Misshapen Head. 'something Along These Lines: If We Die Today, We Do Not Have To Die Tomorrow, So Let Us Look To The Best In Each Other

Of Course You Keep Telling Yourself There's Something To Be Learned From Everything, And Growing Old Shouldn't Be That Hard. That's The General Drift.

Don't Let Thoughts Of Me Hold You Back. Just Do What You Want To Do. Otherwise, I Might End Up Taking You With Me, And That Is The One Thing I Don't Want To Do. I Don't Want To Interfere With Your Life.

I Never Made Any Plan Before Writing, However I Succeeded. I Enjoyed Writing With Excitement ,"what Happen On The Next Page?"

She Was Seriously In Love, But She Never Made Demands.

My Imagination Is A Kind Of Animal. So What I Do Is Keep It Alive.

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

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

I'm A Coward When It Comes To Matters Of The Heart. That Is My Fatal Flaw.

The Pure Present Is An Ungraspable Advance Of The Past Devouring The Future. In Truth, All Sensation Is Already Memory.

Once Thing Goes Wrong, Then The Whole House Of Cards Collapses. And There's No Way You Can Extricate Yourself. Until Someone Comes Along To Drag You Out.

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.

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.

There Are Many Things We Only See Clearly In Retrospect.

..finally He Was Just Another Ant, Working And Working Until He Died Without Meaning.

There's A Special Feeling You Get On A Veranda That You Just Can't Get Anywhere Else.

I Go Back To The Reading Room, Where I Sink Down In The Sofa And Into The World Of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, Like A Movie Fadeout, The Real World Evaporates. I'm Alone, Inside The World Of The Story. My Favourite Feeling In The World.

When I First Met You, I Felt A Kind Of Contradiction In You. You’re Seeking Something, But At The Same Time, You Are Running Away For All You’re Worth.

You Like To Write. It's The Single Most Important Quality For Someone Who Wants To Be A Writer. But Not In Itself Enough.

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.

Maybe The Only Thing I Can Definitely Say About Is This: That’s Life. Maybe The Only Thing We Can Do Is Accept It, Without Really Knowing What’s Going On.

They Put Up With Such Strenuous Training, And Where Did Their Thoughts, Their Hopes And Dreams, Disappear To? When People Pass Away, Do Their Thoughts Just Vanish?

I'm Not A Fast Thinker, But Once I Am Interested In Something, I Am Doing It For Many Years.

I Am Struck By How, Except When You're Young, You Really Need To Prioritize In Life, Figuring Out In What Order You Should Divide Up Your Time And Energy. If You Don't Get That Sort Of System Set By A Certain Age, You'll Lack Focus And Your Life Will Be Out Of Balance.

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

The Moon Had Been Observing The Earth Close-up Longer Than Anyone. It Must Have Witnessed All Of The Phenomena Occurring - And All Of The Acts Carried Out - On This Earth. But The Moon Remained Silent; It Told No Stories.

He Appeared Before Me And Departed. We Were Not Able To Speak To Or Touch Each Other. But In That Short Interval, He Transformed Many Things Inside Me. He Literally Stirred My Mind And Body The Way A Spoon Stirs A Cup Of Cocoa, Down To The Depths Of My Internal Organs And My Womb.

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.

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.

Everything In Life Is A Metaphor.

There Are Ways Of Dying That Don't End In Funerals. Types Of Death You Can't Smell.

People's Memories Are Maybe The Fuel They Burn To Stay Alive.

Kids' Hearts Are Malleable, But Once They Gel It's Hard To Get Them Back The Way They Were.

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

While They're Still Alive, People Can Become Ghosts.

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.

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.

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.

One Heart Is Not Connected To Another Through Harmony Alone. They Are, Instead, Linked Deeply Through Their Wounds

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.

The House Kept Its Own Time, Like The Old-fashioned Grandfather Clock In The Living Room. People Who Happened By Raised The Weights, And As Long As The Weights Were Wound, The Clock Continued Ticking Away. But With People Gone And The Weights Unattended, Whole Chunks Of Time Were Left To Collect In Deposits Of Faded Life On The Floor.

It Depends On Which Reality You Take And Which Reality I Take.” (p. 318).

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.

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.

The World Is An Inherently Unfair Place.

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.

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.

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

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.

Will You Wait For Me Forever?

I Love Pop Culture -- The Rolling Stones, The Doors, David Lynch, Things Like That. That's Why I Said I Don't Like Elitism.

[but] We Accept Irony Through A Device Called Metaphor. And Through That We Grow And Become Deeper Human Beings.

Where Are You Now?’ Where Was I Now? Gripping The Receiver, I Raised My Hand And Turned To See What Lay Beyond The Telephone Booth. Where Was I Now? I Had No Idea. No Idea At All. Where Was This Place? All That Flashed Into My Eyes Were The Countless Shapes Of People Walking By To Nowhere. Again And Again, I Called Out For Midori From The Dead Center Of This Place That Was No Place.

Sometimes I Feel So- I Don’t Know - Lonely. The Kind Of Helpless Feeling When Everything You’re Used To Has Been Ripped Away. Like There’s No More Gravity, And I’m Left To Drift In Outer Space With No Idea Where I’m Going’ Like A Little Lost Sputnik?’ I Guess So.

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.

Writing Talent Is Similar To The Art Of Chatting Up A Girl. You Can Improve To A Certain Degree Through Practice, But Basically You Are Either Born With It Or You Aren't.

What Matters Is Deciding In Your Heart To Accept Another Person Completely. When You Do That, It Is Always The First Time And The Last.

I Want To Write About People Who Dream And Wait For The Night To End, Who Long For The Light So They Can Hold The Ones They Love.

Potentiality Knocks On The Door Of My Heart. [on Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning ]

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.

Huge Organizations And Me Don't Get Along. They're Too Inflexible, Waste Too Much Time, And Have Too Many Stupid People.

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.

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

It's A Terrible Thing When A Person Dies, Whatever The Circumstances. A Hole Opens Up In The World, And We Need To Pay The Proper Respects. If We Don't, The Hole Will Never Be Filled In Again.

But I Didn't Walk A Single Step. I Stopped A Lot To Stretch, But I Never Walked. I Didn't Come Here To Walk. I Came To Run. That's The Reason-the Only Reason-i Flew All The Way To The Northern Tip Of Japan. No Matter How Slow I Might Run, I Wasn't About To Walk. That Was The Rule.

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

Do You Know What ‘sputnik’ Means In Russian? ‘travelling Companion’. I Looked It Up In A Dictionary Not Long Ago. Kind Of A Strange Coincidence If You Think About It. I Wonder Why The Russians Gave Their Satellite That Strange Name. It’s Just A Poor Little Lump Of Metal, Spinning Around The Earth.

Spinning Around

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 Not Good At Talking,” Naoko Said. “haven’t Been For The Longest While. I Start To Say Something And The Wrong Words Come Out. Wrong Or Sometimes Completely Backward. I Try To Go Back And Correct It, But Things Get Even More Complicated And Confused, So That I Don’t Even Remember What I Started To Say In The First Place. Like I Was Split Into Two Or Something, One Half Chasing The Other. And There’s This Big Pillar In The Middle And They Go Chasing Each Other Around And Around It. The Other Me Always Latches Onto The Right Word And This Me Absolutely Never Catches Up

I Was Reborn," She Said, Her Hot Breath Brushing His Ear. "you Were Reborn," Tengo Said. "because I Died Once." "you Died Once," Tengo Repeated. "on A Night When There Was A Cold Rain Falling," She Said. "why Did You Die?" "so I Would Be Reborn Like This." "you Would Be Reborn," Tengo Said. "more Or Less," She Whispered Quietly. "in All Sorts Of Forms.

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.

Living Like An Empty Shell Is Not Really Living, No Matter How Many Years It May Go On. The Heart And Flesh Of An Empty Shell Give Birth To Nothing More Than The Life Of An Empty Shell.

As A Novelist, You Could Say That I Am Dreaming While I Am Awake, And Every Day I Can Continue With Yesterday's Dream. Because It Is A Dream, There Are So Many Contradictions And I Have To Adjust Them To Make The Story Work. But, In Principle, The Original Dream Does Not Change.

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.

I Have No Idea! I Have Been Writing For 35 Years And From The Beginning Up To Now The Situation's Almost The Same. I'm Kind Of An Ugly Duckling. Always The Duckling, Never The Swan.

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.

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

When The Orbits Of These Two Satellites Of Ours Happened To Cross Paths, We Could Be Together. Maybe Even Open Our Hearts To Each Other. But That Was Only For The Briefest Moment. In The Next Instant We'd Be In Absolute Solitude. Until We Burned Up And Became Nothing.

I Happen To Like The Strange Ones. People Who Look Normal And Leads Normal Lives - They're The Ones You Have To Watch Out For.

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

Two-thirds Of Earth's Surface Is Ocean, And All We Can See With The Naked Eye Is The Surface.

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

No One Could Say How Long That Life Would Last. Whatever Has Form Can Disappear In An Instant.

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

End Of The World

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.

I Didn't Want To Be A Writer, But I Became One. And Now I Have Many Readers, In Many Countries. I Think That's A Miracle. So I Think I Have To Be Humble Regarding This Ability. I'm Proud Of It And I Enjoy It, And It Is Strange To Say It This Way, But I Respect It.

I May Not Look It, But I Can Be A Very Patient Guy. And Killing Time Is One Of My Specialities.

It Is Sometimes Necessary For Each Person. Fill Up With Delicious Food, Get Drunk, Sing Loudly And Chat Frivolously.

Dreaming Is The Day Job Of Novelists, But Sharing Our Dreams Is A Still More Important Task For Us. We Cannot Be Novelists Without This Sense Of Sharing Something.

Ice Contains No Future , Just The Past, Sealed Away. As If They're Alive, Everything In The World Is Sealed Up Inside, Clear And Distinct. Ice Can Preserve All Kinds Of Things That Way- Cleanly, Clearly. That's The Essence Of Ice, The Role It Plays.

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.

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

The Others In The Dorm Thought I Wanted To Be A Writer, Because I Was Always Alone With A Book, But I Had No Such Ambition. There Was Nothing I Wanted To Be.

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

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.

I Myself, As I'm Writing, Don't Know Who Did It. The Readers And I Are On The Same Ground. When I Start To Write A Story, I Don't Know The Conclusion At All And I Don't Know What's Going To Happen Next. If There Is A Murder Case As The First Thing, I Don't Know Who The Killer Is. I Write The Book Because I Would Like To Find Out. If I Know Who The Killer Is, There's No Purpose To Writing The Story.

I Was Feeling Lonely Without Her, But The Fact That I Could Feel Lonely At All Was Consolation. Loneliness Wasn't Such A Bad Feeling. It Was Like The Stillness Of The Pin Oak After The Little Birds Had Flown Off.

I Said Nothing For A Time, Just Ran My Fingertips Along The Edge Of The Human-shaped Emptiness That Had Been Left Inside Me.

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.'

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

And When You Come Back To Japan Next Summer, Let's Have That Date Or Whatever You Want To Call It. We Can Go To The Zoo Or The Botanical Garden Or The Aquarium, And Then We'll Have The Most Politically Correct And Scrumptious Omelets We Can Find.

Tell Me How You Could Say Such A Thing, She Said, Staring Down At The Ground Beneath Her Feet. You're Not Telling Me Anything I Don't Know Already. 'relax Your Body, And The Rest Of You Will Lighten Up.' What's The Point Of Saying That To Me? If I Relaxed My Body Now, I'd Fall Apart. I've Always Lived Like This, And It's The Only Way I Know How To Go On Living. If I Relaxed For A Second, I'd Never Find My Way Back. I'd Go To Pieces, And The Pieces Would Be Blown Away. Why Can't You See That? How Can You Talk About Watching Over Me If You Can't See That?

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

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.

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.

All I Do Is Keep On Running In My Own Cozy, Homemade Void, My Own Nostalgic Silence. And This Is A Pretty Wonderful Thing. No Matter What Anybody Else Says.

I Have These Realistic Dreams And Snap Wide Awake In The Middle Of The Night. And For A While I Can't Work Out What's Real And What Isn't... That Kind Of Feeling. Do You Have Any Idea What I'm Saying?

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

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.

Of What Value Is A Civilization That Can't Toast A Piece Of Bread As Ordered?

Our Faces Were No More Than Ten Inches Apart But She Was Lightyears Away From Me.

Deep Rivers Run Quiet.

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.

Everybody Thinks I'm This Delicate Little Girl. But You Can't Tell A Book By It's Cover.' To Which She Added A Momentary Smile.

I Was Dying. Like All The Other People Who Live In This World.

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.

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

Have Books ‘happened’ To You? Unless Your Answer To That Question Is ‘yes,’ I’m Unsure How To Talk To You

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.

Never Trust A Man Who Carries A Handkerchief, I Always Say. One Of Many Prejudicial Rules Of Thumb.

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.

But The Silence Spoke Volumes.

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.

It Might Not Be Perfect, But The Fundamental Stance I Adopted With Regard To My Home Was To Accept It, Problems And All, Because It Was Something I Myself Had Chosen. If It Had Problems, These Were Almost Certainly Problems That Had Originated Within Me.

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

It's Like Tolstoy Said. Happiness Is An Allegory, Unhappiness A Story.

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.

Kindness And A Caring Mind Are Two Separate Qualities. Kindness Is Manners. It Is Superficial Custom, An Acquired Practice. Not So The Mind. The Mind Is Deeper, Stronger, And, I Believe, It Is Far More Inconstant.

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.

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.

Perhaps I'm Just Too Painstaking A Type Of Person, But I Can't Grasp Much Of Anything Without Putting Down My Thoughts In Writing.

I Dream. Sometimes I Think That's The Only Right Thing To Do.

I Generally Concentrate On Work For Three Or Four Hours Every Morning. I Sit At My Desk And Focus Totally On What I’m Writing. I Don’t See Anything Else, I Don’t Think About Anything Else.

I Get Irritated, I Get Upset. Especially When I'm In A Hurry. But I See It All As Part Of Our Training. To Get Irritated Is To Lose Our Way In Life.

We All Die And Disappear, But That's Because The Mechanism Of The World Itself Is Built On Destruction And Loss.

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.

Nights Without Work I Spend With Whisky And Books.

Gays, Lesbians, Straights, Feminists, Fascist Pigs, Communists, Hare Krishnas - None Of Them Bother Me. I Don't Care What Banner They Raise. But What I Can't Stand Are Hollow People. When I'm With Them I Just Can't Bare It, And Wind Up Saying Things I Shouldn't.

I Miss You Terribly Sometimes, But In General I Go On Living With All The Energy I Can Muster. Just As You Take Care Of The Birds And The Fields Every Morning, Every Morning I Wind My Own Spring. I Give It Some 36 Good Twists By The Time I've Got Up, Brushed My Teeth, Shaved, Eaten Breakfast, Changed My Clothes, Left The Dorm, And Arrived At The University. I Tell Myself, "ok, Let's Make This Day Another Good One." I Hadn't Noticed Before, But They Tell Me I Talk To Myself A Lot These Days. Probably Mumbling To Myself While I Wind My Spring.

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.

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

Even When I Ran My Bar I Followed The Same Policy. A Lot Of Customers Came To The Bar. If One In Ten Enjoyed The Place And Said He'd Come Again, That Was Enough. If One Out Of Ten Was A Repeat Customer, Then The Business Would Survive. To Put It Another Way, It Didn't Matter If Nine Out Of Ten Didn't Like My Bar. This Realization Lifted A Weight Off My Shoulders. Still, I Had To Make Sure That The One Person Who Did Like The Place.

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.

Things Outside You Are Projections Of What's Inside You, And What's Inside You Is A Projection Of What's Outside. So When You Step Into The Labyrinth Outside You, At The Same Time You're Stepping Into The Labyrinth Inside.

As Long As You Have The Courage To Admit Mistakes, Things Can Be Turned Around.

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

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.

Lots Of Different Ways To Live And Lots Of Different Ways To Die. But In The End That Doesn't Make A Bit Of Difference. All That Remains Is A Desert.

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

What Makes Us The Most Normal," Said Reiko, "is Knowing That We're Not Normal.

That's How People Live In The Real World: Forcing Stuff On Each Other.

Sometimes It's Not The People Who Change, It's The Mask That Falls Off.

The Most Important Thing We Learn At School Is The Fact That The Most Important Things Can't Be Learned At School.

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.

...i've Just Been Feeling Insecure Since I Was 20, And That's All I've Been Trying To Express. Now The Entire World Is Feeling Insecure.

I Tell Lies Sometimes. The Last Time I Lied Was A Year Ago. I Absolutely Detest Lying. You Could Say That Lying And Silence Are The Two Greatest Sins Of Present Day Society. Actually, I Lie A Lot, And I'm Always Clamming Up.

But I Found That The Longer You Teach, The More You Feel Like A Total Stranger To Yourself

A Theory Is A Battlefield In Your Head.

Team Sports Aren't My Thing. I Find It Easier To Pick Something Up If I Can Do It At My Own Speed. And You Don't Need A Partner To Go Running, You Don't Need A Particular Place, Like In Tennis, Just A Pair Of Trainers.

Love Can Rebuild The World, They Say, So Everything's Possible When It Comes To Love.

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.

If, As The Dowager Had Said, We Are Nothing But Gene Carriers, Why Do So Many Of Us Have To Lead Such Strangely Shaped Lives? Wouldn't Our Genetic Purpose-to Transmit Dna-be Served Just As Well If We Lived Simple Lives, Not Bothering Our Heads With A Lot Of Extraneous Thoughts, Devoted Entirely To Preserving Life And Procreating? Did It Benefit The Genes In Any Way For Us To Lead Such Intricately Warped, Even Bizarre, Lives?

Confidence; As A Teenager? Because I Knew What I Loved. I Loved To Read; I Loved To Listen To Music; And I Love Cats. Those Three Things. So, Even Though I Was An Only Kid, I Could Be Happy Because I Knew What I Loved.

I Guess I Felt Attached To My Weakness. My Pain And Suffering Too. Summer Light, The Smell Of A Breeze, The Sound Of Cicadas - If I Like These Things, Why Should I Apologize?

Of Course It Hurt That We Could Never Love Each Other In A Physical Way. We Would Have Been Far More Happy If We Had. But That Was Like The Tides, The Change Of Seasons--something Immutable, An Immovable Destiny We Could Never Alter. No Matter How Cleverly We Might Shelter It, Our Delicate Friendship Wasn't Going To Last Forever. We Were Bound To Reach A Dead End. That Was Painfully Clear.

Life Is Like A Box Of Cookies.

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.

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

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