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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.

-Haruki Murakami

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Me, I've Seen 45

Haruki Murakami

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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.

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

They Were Each Like A Mirror For The Other, Reflecting The Changes In Themselves.

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

A Strange, Terrific Force Unlike Anything I've Ever Experienced Is Sprouting In My Heart, Taking Root There, Growing. Shut Up Behind My Rib Cage, My Warm Heart Expands And Contracts Independent Of My Will--over And Over.

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

There Are Some Things About Myself I Can’t Explain To Anyone. There Are Some Things I Don’t Understand At All. I Can’t Tell What I Think About Things Or What I’m After. I Don’t Know What My Strengths Are Or What I’m Supposed To Do About Them. But If I Start Thinking About These Things In Too Much Detail The Whole Thing Gets Scary. And If I Get Scared I Can Only Think About Myself. I Become Really Self-centered, And Without Meaning To, I Hurt People. So I’m Not Such A Wonderful Human Being.

The Better You Were Able To Imagine What You Wanted To Imagine, The Farther You Could Flee From Reality.

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

It's True That At The Time I Was Fond Of Kurt Vonnegut And Richard Brautigan, And It Was From Them That I Learned About This Kind Of Simple, Swift-paced Style, But The Main Reason For The Style Of My First Novel Is That I Simply Did Not Have The Time To Write Sustained Prose.

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.

At My Core, There Is Nothing. Neither Is It Parched Wastelands. At My Core, There Is Love. I'll Go On Loving That Ten-year-old Boy Named Tengo Forever --- His Strength, His Intelligence, His Kindness. He Does Not Exist Here, With Me, But Flesh That Does Not Exist Will Never Die, And Promises Unmade Are Never Broken.

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.

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

I Didn't Feel Like I Was In My Own Body; My Body Was Just A Lonely, Temporary Container I Happened To Be Borrowing.

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

Since I'm A Novelist I'm The Opposite Of You - I Believe That What's Most Important Is What Cannot Be Measured. I'm Not Denying Your Way Of Thinking, But The Greater Part Of People's Lives Consist Of Things That Are Unmeasurable, And Trying To Change All These To Something Measurable Is Realistically Impossible.

If You Want To Talk About Something New, You Have To Make Up A New Kind Of Language.

I Write My Novels Personally, Desperately And Non-negligently. When I Write My Novels, I Think About My Novels Only, And Never Do Other Works.

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.

I'd Be Smiling And Chatting Away, And My Mind Would Be Floating Around Somewhere Else, Like A Balloon With A Broken String.

As I Already Explaned, I Don't Have Any Form. I'm A Conceptual Metaphysical Object.

It Was A Strange Feeling, Like Touching A Void.

I Stare At Her Chest. As She Breathes, The Rounded Peaks Move Up And Down Like The Swell Of Waves, Somehow Reminding Me Of Rain Falling Softly On A Broad Stretch Of Sea. I'm The Lonely Voyager Standing On Deck, And She's The Sea. The Sky Is A Blanket Of Gray, Merging With The Gray Sea Off On The Horizon. It's Hard To Tell The Difference Between Sea And Sky. Between Voyager And Sea. Between Reality And The Workings Of The Heart.

The Strength I'm Looking For Isn't The Type Where You Win Or Lose. I'm Not After A Wall That'll Repel Power Coming From Outside. What I Want Us The Kind Of Strength To Be Able To Absorb That Kind Of Power, To Stand Up To It.the Strength To Quietly Endure Things - Unfairness, Misfortunes, Sadness, Mistakes, Misunderstandings.

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

Losing A Loved One

As Long As I Kept My Body Moving I Could Forget About The Emptiness Inside.

Writing Is Fun - At Least Mostly. I Write For Four Hours Every Day. After That I Go Running. As A Rule, 10 Kilometers (6.2 Miles). That's Easy To Manage.

When I Was A Teenager, I Thought How Great It Would Be If Only I Could Write Novels In English. I Had The Feeling That I Would Be Able To Express My Emotions So Much More Directly Than If I Wrote In Japanese.

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

Once Upon A Time

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.

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)

Pain Is Inevitable. Suffering Is Optional. Say You’re Running And You Think, ‘man, This Hurts, I Can’t Take It Anymore. The ‘hurt’ Part Is An Unavoidable Reality, But Whether Or Not You Can Stand Anymore Is Up To The Runner Himself.

Of Course Life Frightens Me Sometimes. I Don't Happen To Take That As The Premise For Everything Else Though. I'm Going To Give It Hundred Percent And Go As Far As I Can. I'll Take What I Want And Leave What I Don't Want. That's How I Intend To Live My Life, And It Things Go Bad, I'll Stop And Reconsider At That Point. If You Think About It, An Unfair Society Is A Society That Makes It Possible For You To Exploit Your Abilities To The Limit.

You’re Optimistic One Moment, Only To Be Racked The Next By The Certainty That It Will All Fall To Pieces. And In The End It Does.

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.

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

Ever Since That Happened To Me, I Haven't Been Able To Give Myself To Anyone In This World.

Problem Is, Once I Sit At My Desk And Put All These Down On Paper. I Realize Something Vital Is Missing. It Doesn't Crystallize - No Crystals, Just Pebbles. And I'm Not Transported Anywhere.

Most Of The Psychological Differences Between Men And Women Seem To Come From Differences In Their Reproductive System

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.

When The Fire Goes Out, You'll Start Feeling The Cold. You'll Wake Up Whether You Want To Or Not.

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.

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.

My Point Is: In This Whole Wide World The Only Person You Can Depend On Is You.

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.

Loneliness Becomes An Acid That Eats Away At You.

The World In Books Seemed So Much More Alive To Me Than Anything Outside. I Could See Things I'd Never Seen Before. Books And Music Were My Best Friends. I Had A Couple Of Good Friends At School, But Never Met Anyone I Could Really Speak My Heart To. We'd Just Make Small Talk, Play Soccer Together. When Something Bothered Me, I Didn't Talk With Anyone About It. I Thought It Over All By Myself, Came To A Conclusion, And Took Action Alone. Not That I Really Felt Lonely. I Thought That's Just The Way Things Are. Human Beings, In The Final Analysis, Have To Survive On Their Own.

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

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.

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

Love And Used Subarus Were Two Different Things. Weren't They?

The Curious Thing About Individuals Is That Their Singularity Always Goes Beyond Any Category Or Generalization In The Book.

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.

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.

He Does Not Exist Here, With Me, But Flesh That Does Not Exist Will Never Die, And Promises Unmade Are Never Broken.

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.

So Once You're Dead There's Just Nothing? Mari: Basically... Korogi: I Get So Scared When I Start Thinking About This Stuff. I Can Hardly Breathe, And My Whole Body Wants To Shrink Into A Corner. It's So Much Easier To Just Believe In Reincarnation.

If You Think God’s There, He Is. If You Don’t, He Isn’t. And If That’s What God’s Like, I Wouldn’t Worry About It.

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

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.

Even If There Were Two Of Me, I Still Couldn't Do All That Has To Be Done. No Matter What, Though, I Keep Up My Running. Running Every Day Is A Kind Of Lifeline For Me, So I'm Not Going To Lay Off Or Quit Just Because I'm Busy. 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. All I Can Do Is Keep Those Few Reasons Nicely Polished.

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

I Have No Models In Japanese Literature. I Created My Own Style, My Own Way.

If We Reverse The Outer Shell And The Essence--in Other Words, Consider The Outer Shell The Essence And The Essence Only The Shell--our Lives Might Be A Whole Lot Easier To Understand.

Maybe The Star Doesnt Even Exist Any More.yet Sometimes That Light Seems More Real To Me Than Anything.

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

Passing Moments

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I Found A Bill Evans Record In The Bookcase And Was Listening To It While Drying My Hair When I Realized That It Was The Record I Had Played In Naoko's Room On The Night Of Her Birthday, The Night She Cried And I Took Her In My Arms. That Had Happened Only Six Months Earlier, But It Felt Like Something From A Much Remoter Past. Maybe It Felt That Way Because I Had Thought About It So Often-too Often, To The Point Where It Had Distorted My Sense Of Time.

I Was Confident That I Was A Special Person. But Time Slowly Chips Away At Life. People Don't Just Die When Their Time Comes. They Gradually Die Away, From The Inside. And Finally The Day Comes When You Have To Settle Accounts. Nobody Can Escape It. People Have To Pay The Price For What They've Received. I Have Only Just Learned That Truth.

Why Do I Act Like This, Agreeing When I Really Disagree, Letting People Force Me To Do Things I Don't Want To Do?

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.

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.

This May Be The Most Important Proposition Revealed By History: At The Time, No One Knew What Was Coming.

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.

Not That We Were Incompatible: We Just Had Nothing To Talk About.

People Need Routines. It's Like A Theme In Music. But It Also Restrictsyour Thoughts And Actions And Limits Your Freedom. It Structures Your Priorities And In Some Cases Distorts Your Logic.

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

In Dreams Begins Responsiblities.

If You Can Love Someone With Your Whole Heart, Even One Person, Then There's Salvation In Life. Even If You Can't Get Together With That Person.

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

You're Walking Through A Field All By Yourself One Day In Spring And This Sweet Little Bear Cub With Velvet Fur And Shiny Little Eyes Comes Walking Along. And He Says To You, 'hi, There, Little Lady. Want To Tumble With Me?' So You And The Bear Spend The Whole Day In Each Other's Arms, Tumbling Down This Clover-covered Hill. Nice, Huh?

I Wasn't In Love With Her. And She Didn't Love Me. For Me The Question Of Love Was Irrelevant. What I Sought Was The Sense Of Being Tossed About By Some Raging, Savage Force, In The Midst Of Which Lay Something Absolutely Crucial. I Had No Idea What That Was. But I Wanted To Thrust My Hand Right Inside Her Body And Touch It, Whatever It Was.

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

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

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

But The Silence Spoke Volumes.

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

Not That Running Away's Going To Solve Everything. I Don't Want To Rain On Your Parade Or Anything, But I Wouldn't Count On Escaping This Place If I Were You. No Matter How Far You Run. Distance Might Not Solve Anything.

Concentration Is One Of The Happiest Things In My Life.

What Was Lost Was Lost. There Was No Retrieving It, However You Schemed, No Returning To How Things Were, No Going Back.

Every Writer Has His Writing Technique - What He Can And Can't Do To Describe Something Like War Or History. I'm Not Good At Writing About Those Things, But I Try Because I Feel It Is Necessary To Write That Kind Of Thing.

What We Call The Present Is Given Shape By An Accumulation Of The Past.

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

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.

Everybody Burns Out In This World; Amateur, Pro, It Doesn't Matter, They All Burn Out, They All Get Hurt, The Ok Guys And The Not-ok Guys Both. That's Why Everybody Takes Out A Little Insurance. I've Got Some Too, Here At The Bottom Of The Heap. That Way, You Manage To Survive If You Burn Out. If You're All By Yourself And Don't Belong Anywhere, You Go Down Once, And You're Out. Finished.

What Do You Think? I'm Not A Starfish Or A Pepper Tree. I'm A Living, Breathing Human Being. Of Course I've Been In Love.

We Knew Exactly What We Wanted In Each Other. And Even So, It Ended. One Day It Stopped, As If The Film Simply Slipped Off The Reel.

Exerting Yourself To The Limit Over And Over Again, That Is The Essence Of Running. Running Is Painful, But The Pain Doesn't Leave Me, I Can Take Care Of It. That Agrees With My Mentality.

Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?

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

My Heart Would Swell Without Warning, And Tremble, And Lurch With A Stab Of Pain. I Would Try Clamping My Eyes Shut And Gritting My Teeth, And Waiting For It To Pass. And It Would Pass -- But Slowly, Taking Its Own Time, And Leaving A Dull Ache Behind.

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

It's Just That You're About To Do Something Out Of The Ordinary. And After You Do Something Like That, The Everyday Look Of Things Might Seem To Change A Little. Things May Look Different To You Than They Did Before. But Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Always Only One Reality.

As Long As Possible, I Would Really Like To Complete One Marathon Per Year. Though My Time Has Been Slowing Down As I Get Older, It Has Become A Very Important Part Of My Life.

Writing A Long Novel Is Like Survival Training. Physical Strength Is As Necessary As Artistic Sensitivity.

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

There's An Essential Order You Have To Follow In Everything. It's A Way Of Showing Respect, Following Everything In The Correct Order.

Kumiko And I Felt Something For Each Other From The Beginning. It Was Not One Of Those Strong, Impulsive Feelings That Can Hit Two People Like An Electric Shock When They First Meet, But Something Quieter And Gentler, Like Two Tiny Lights Traveling In Tandem Through A Vast Darkness And Drawing Imperceptibly Closer To Each Other As They Go. As Our Meetings Grew More Frequent, I Felt Not So Much That I Had Met Someone New As That I Had Chanced Upon A Dear Old Friend.

If I'm Going To Merely Ramble, Maybe I Should Just Snuggle Under The Warm Covers, Think Of Miu, And Play With Myself.

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.

If You Think Of Someone Enough, You’re Sure To Meet Them Again.

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

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.'

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

Which Is Why I Am Writing This Book. To Think. To Understand. It Just Happens To Be The Way I'm Made. I Have To Write Things Down To Feel I Fully Comprehend Them.

For Example, The Wind Has Its Reasons. We Just Don't Notice As We Go About Our Lives. But Then, At Some Point, We Are Made To Notice. The Wind Envelops You With A Certain Purpose In Mind, And It Rocks You. The Wind Knows Everything That's Inside You. And Not Just The Wind. Everything, Including A Stone. They All Know Us Very Well. From Top To Bottom. It Only Occurs To Us At Certain Times. And All We Can Do Is Go With Those Things. As We Take Them In, We Survive, And Deepen.

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

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 Best Thing Would Be To Break Your Neck, But You'd Probably Just Break Your Leg And Then You Couldn't Do A Thing. You'd Yell At The Top Of Your Lungs, But Nobody;d Hear You, And You Couldn't Expect Anybody To Find You, And You'd Have Centipedes And Spiders Crawling All Over You, And The Bones Of The Ones Who Died Before Are Scattered All Around You, And It's Dark And Soggy, And Way Overhead There's This Tiny, Tiny Circle Of Light Like A Winter Moon. You Die There In This Place, Little By Little, All By Yourself.

In Japan, The Writers Have Made Up A Literary Community, A Circle, A Society. I Think 90 Percent Of Japan's Writers Live In Tokyo. Naturally, They Make A Community. There Are Groups And Customs, And So They Are Tied Up In A Way.

Knowledge And Ability Were Tools, Not Things To Show Off.

Time Passes Slowly. Nobody Says A Word, Everyone Lost In Quiet Reading. One Person Sits At A Desk Jotting Down Notes, But The Rest Are Sitting There Silently, Not Moving, Totally Absorbed. Just Like Me.

Oshima's Silent For A Time As He Gazes At The Forest, Eyes Narrowed. Birds Are Flitting From One Branch To The Next. His Hands Are Clasped Behind His Head. "i Know How You Feel," He Finally Says. "but This Is Something You Have To Work Out On Your Own. Nobody Can Help You. That's What Love's All About, Kafka. You're The 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.

So This Was How Secrets Got Started, I Thought To Myself. People Constructed Them Little By Little.

If You're In Pitch Blackness, All You Can Do Is Sit Tight Until Your Eyes Get Used To The Dark.

Have You Ever Had That Feeling—that You’d Like To Go To A Whole Different Place And Become A Whole Different Self?

Some People Think Literature Is High Culture And That It Should Only Have A Small Readership. I Don't Think So... I Have To Compete With Popular Culture, Including Tv, Magazines, Movies And Video Games.

It Is Very Simple, Actually. It Is Because You And Tengo Were So Powerfully Drawn To Each Other.

She Gave Me This Look – She Might Have Been Watching From A Lifeboat As The Ship Went Down. Or Maybe It Was The Other Way Around.

I'm Not Going To Get Involved In A Debate With You. Just Remember This: The Gods Give, And The Gods Take Away. Even If You Are Not Aware Of Having Been Granted What You Posses, The Gods Remember What They Gave You. They Don't Forget A Thing. You Should Use The Abilities You Have Been Granted With The Utmost Care.

I Don't Know How Many Good Books I Still Have In Me; I Hope There Are Another Four Or Five.

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.

Is This What It Means To Go Back To Square One? Most Likely. He Had Nothing Left To Lose, Other Than His Life.

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.

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.

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

Start Making Excuses And There's No End To It. I Can't Live That Kind Of Life.

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

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

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

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

I'm The Kind Of Person Who Has To Totally Commit To Whatever I Do.

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

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

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

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.

The Little Things Are Important, Mr. Wind-up Bird.

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

I Have Come To Think That Life Is A Far More Limited Thing Than Those In The Midst Of Its Maelstorm Realize. That Light Shines Into The Act Of Life For Only The Briefest Moment - Perhaps Only A Matter Of Seconds. Once It Is Gone And Failed To Grasp Its Offered Revelation, There Is No Second Chance. One May Have To Live The Rest Of One's Life In Hopeless Depth Of Loneliness And Remorse. In That Twilight World, One Can No Longer Look Forward To Anything. All That Such A Person Holds In His Hands Is The Withered Corpse Of What Should Have Been.

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

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

Whether You Take The Doughnut Hole As A Blank Space Or As An Entity Unto Itself Is A Purely Metaphysical Question And Does Not Affect The Taste Of The Doughnut One Bit.

Find Me Now. Before Someone Else Does.

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.

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

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

The Unwaking World Was As Hushed As A Deep Forest.

It Was A Narrow World, A World That Was Standing Still. But The Narrower It Became, The More It Betook Of Stillness, The More This World That Enveloped Me Seemed To Overflow With Things And People That Could Only Be Called Strange. They Had Been There All The While, It Seemed, Waiting In The Shadows For Me To Stop Moving. And Every Time The Wind-up Bird Came To My Yard To Wind Its Spring, The World Descendedmore Deeply Into Chaos.

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

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.

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

I Couldn't Tell Wether The Hole That Opened Up Inside Me Was From Missing You Or From The Change Of Season

Judging The Mistakes Of Strangers Is An Easy Thing To Do - And It Feels Pretty Good.

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

It Is Not That The Meaning Cannot Be Explained. But There Are Certain Meanings That Are Lost Forever The Moment They Are Explained In Words.

You Have To Dream Intentionally. Most People Dream A Dream When They Are Asleep. But To Be A Writer, You Have To Dream While You Are Awake, Intentionally.

I Never Could Stand Being Forced To Do Something I Didn't Want To Do At A Time I Didn't Want To Do It. Whenever I Was Able To Do Something I Liked To Do, Though, When I Wanted To Do It, And The Way I Wanted To Do It, I'd Give It Everything I Had.

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

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

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.

Inside That Darkness, I Saw Rain Falling On The Sea. Rain Softly Falling On A Vast Sea, With No One There To See It. The Rain Strikes The Surface Of The Sea, Yet Even The Fish Don't Know It Is Raining.

Don't Pointless Things Have A Place, Too, In This Far-from-perfect World? Remove Everything Pointless From An Imperfect Life, And It'd Lose Even Its Imperfection.

Pointless Things

I Was Thirty-seven Then, Strapped In My Seat As The Huge 747 Plunged Through Dense Cloud Cover On Approach To The Hamburg Airport.

The World In Books Seemed So Much More Alive To Me Than Anything Outside. I Could See Things I'd Never Seen Before. Books And Music Were My Best Friends. I Had A Couple Of Good Friends At School, But Never Met Anyone I Could Really Speak My Heart To.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

It Was Spring Break, So The Theater Was Always Packed With High Schools Students. It Was An Animal House. I Wanted To Burn The Place Down.

Nature Is Actually Unnatural

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

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.

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

Despite Your Best Efforts, People Are Going To Be Hurt When It's Time For Them To Be Hurt.

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

Remembers Everything

Things Can Be Seen Better In The Darkness," He Said, As If He Had Just Seen Into Her Mind. "but The Longer You Spend In The Dark, The Harder It Becomes To Return To The World Aboveground Where The Light Is

Hatsumi Had A Pretty Good Idea That Nagasawa Was Sleeping Around, But She Never Complained To Him. She Was Seriously In Love With Him, But She Never Made Demands. 'i Don't Deserve A Girl Like Hatsumi,' Nagasawa Once Said To Me. I Had To Agree With Him.

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

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