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She's Letting Out Her Feelings. The Scary Thing Is Not Being Able To Do That. When Your Feelings Build Up And Harden And Die Inside, Then You're In Big Trouble.

-Haruki Murakami

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She's Letting Out Her

Haruki Murakami

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She's Letting Out Her Feelings. The Scary Thing Is Not Being Able To Do That. When Your Feelings Build Up And Harden And Die Inside, Then You're In Big Trouble.

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Nakata's Empty Inside... Do You Know What It Means To Be Completely Empty? Being Empty Is Like A Vacant House. An Unlocked, Vacant House. Anybody Can Come In, Anytime They Want. That's What Scares Me The Most

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.

Mental Acuity Was Never Born From Comfortable Circumstances.

Constipation Was One Of The Things She Hated Most In The World, On Par With Despicable Men Who Commit Domestic Violence And Narrow-minded Religious Fundamentalists.

Domestic Violence

I'm Always Tripped Up By The Eternal Who Am I?

"dance," Said The Sheep Man. "yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougotta Dance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, Yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, Wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, You'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, Nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou're Tired, Tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, Okay? Justdon'tletyourfeetstop."

It's The Same With Menus And Men And Just About Anything Else: We Think We're Choosing Things For Ourselves, But In Fact We May Not Be Choosing Anything. It Could Be That Everthing's Being Decided In Advance And We Pretend We're Making Choices. Free Will May Be An Illusion. I Often Think That.

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 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.

What's Nurtured Slowly Grows Well.

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

I Read Naoko's Letter Again And Again, And Each Time I Read It I Would Be Filled With The Same Unbearable Sadness I Used To Feel Whenever Naoko Stared Into My Eyes. I Had No Way To Deal With It, No Place I Could Take It To Or Hide It Away. Like The Wind Passing Over My Body, It Had Neither Shape Nor Weight, Nor Could I Wrap Myself In It.

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.

Whoa!" He Says With A Smile. The Wrinkles At The Corners Of His Eyes Deepen. "chicken Salad A La George Orwell!

Sitting On The Floor, I'd Replay The Past In My Head. Funny, That's All I Did, Day After Day After Day For Half A Year, And I Never Tired Of It. What I'd Been Through Seemed So Vast, With So Many Facets. Vast, But Real, Very Real, Which Was Why The Experience Persisted In Towering Before Me, Like A Monument Lit Up At Night. And The Thing Was, It Was A Monument To Me.

There Is Nothing So Cruel In This World As The Desolation Of Having Nothing To Hope For.

What I'd Like To Be Is A Unique Writer Who's Different From Everybody Else. I Want To Be A Writer Who Tells Stories Unlike Other Writers'.

Unfortunately, The Clock Is Ticking, The Hours Are Going By. The Past Increases, The Future Recedes. Possibilities Decreasing, Regrets Mounting.

Those Five Fingers And That Palm Were Like A Display Case Crammed Full Of Everything I Wanted To Know--and Everything I Had To Know. By Taking My Hand, She Showed Me What These Things Were. That Within The Real World, A Place Like This Existed. In The Space Of Those Ten Seconds I Became I Tiny Bird, Fluttering In The Air, The Wind Rushing By. From High In The Sky I Could See A Scene Far Away. It Was So Far Off I Couldn't Make It Out Clearly, Yet Something Was There, And I Knew That Someday I Would Travel To That Place.

Everybody Has To Start Somewhere. You Have Your Whole Future Ahead Of You. Perfection Doesn't Happen Right Away.

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?

If You Try To Use Your Head To Think About Things, People Don't Want To Have Anything To Do With You

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

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

Why Do People Have To Build Such Depressing Places? I'm Not Saying That Every Nook And Cranny Of The World Has To Be Beautiful, But Does It Have To Be This Ugly?

If You Miss The Bus, Miss The Train, You’d Be Left Behind. So Everyone Says, Let’s Get On The Train, Let’s Get On The Bus And Go Faster And Get Rich... I Just Didn’t Like That Kind Of Lifestyle. I Love To Read Books, To Listen To Music.

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

Passage Of Time

You Can Keep As Quiet As You Like, But One Of These Days Somebody Is Going To Find You.

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

Memories Warm You Up From The Inside. But They Also Tear You Apart.

I'm Not A Fast Reader. I Like To Linger Over Each Sentence, Enjoying The Style. If I Don't Enjoy The Writing, I Stop.

If There’s Something I Can’t Do But Want To, I Won’t Relax Until I’m Able To Do It.

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.

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

Passion Can’t Sustain Itself Forever.

I Never Trust People With No Appetite. It's Like They're Always Holding Something Back On You.

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.

Inside Him, Twenty Years Dissolved And Mixed Into One Complex, Swirling Whole. Everything That Had Accumulated Over The Years-- All He Had Seen, All The Words He Has Spoken, All The Values He Had Held-- All Of It Coalesced Into One Solid, Thick Pillar In His Heart, The Core Of Which Was Spinning Like A Potter's Wheel. Wordlessly, Tengo Observed The Scene, As If Watching The Destruction And Rebirth Of A Planet.

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

Was The Earth Put Here Just To Nourish Human Loneliness?

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

She Waited For The Train To Pass. Then She Said, "i Sometimes Think That People’s Hearts Are Like Deep Wells. Nobody Knows What’s At The Bottom. All You Can Do Is Imagine By What Comes Floating To The Surface Every Once In A While.

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

A Person Learns How To Love Himself Through The Simple Acts Of Loving And Being Loved By Someone Else.

If You Never Noticed, It Never Happened.

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

We Fell Silent Again. The Thing We Had Shared Was Nothing More Than A Fragment Of Time That Had Died Longe Ago.even So, A Faint Glimmer Of That Warm Memory Still Claimed A Part Of My Heart. And When Death Claim Me, No Doubt I Would Walk Along By That Faint Light In The Brief Instant Before Being Flung Once Again Into The Abyss Of Nothingness

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

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

It Is A Lonely Life Sometimes, Like Throwing A Stone Into The Deep Darkness. It Might Hit Something, But You Can’t See It. The Only Thing You Can Do Is To Guess, And To Believe.

Running Taught Me To Have Faith In My Skills As A Writer. I Learned How Much I Can Demand Of Myself, When I Need A Break, And When The Break Starts To Get Too Long. I Known How Hard I Am Allowed To Push Myself.

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

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

In Most Cases Learning Something Essential In Life Requires Physical Pain.

A Short Story I Have Written Long Ago Would Barge Into My House In The Middle Of The Night, Shake Me Awake And Shout, 'hey,this Is No Time For Sleeping! You Can't Forget Me, There's Still More To Write!' Impelled By That Voice, I Would Find Myself Writing A Novel. In This Sense, Too, My Short Stories And Novels Connect Inside Me In A Very Natural, Organic Way.

But If You Peeled Away The Ornamental Egos That She Had Built, There Was Only An Abyss Of Nothingness And The Intense Thirst That Came With It.

The World Is Full Of Ways And Means To Waste Time.

Everybody Has Some One Thing They Do Not Want To Lose," Began The Man. "you Included. And We Are Professionals At Finding Out That Very Thing. Humans By Necessity Must Have A Midway Point Between Their Desires And Their Pride. Just As All Objects Must Have A Center Of Gravity. This Is Something We Can Pinpoint. Only When It Is Gone Do People Realize It Even Existed.

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

Time Is Too Conceptual. Not That It Stops Us From Filling It In. So Much So, We Can't Even Tell Whether Our Experiences Belong To Time Or To The World Of Physical Things.

Physical Things

In Terms Of Evolutionary History, It Was Only Yesterday That Men Learned To Walk Around On Two Legs And Get In Trouble Thinking Complicated Thoughts. So Don't Worry, You'll Burn Out.

What The World Needs Is A Set Villain That People Can Point At And Say, “it’s All Your Fault!

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

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

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.

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.

Here, Too, A Brand-new Day Is Beginning. It Could Be A Day Like All The Others, Or It Could Be A Day Remarkable Enough In Many Ways To Remain In The Memory. In Either Case, For Now, For Most People, It Is A Blank Sheet Of Paper.

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.

A Person's Last Moments Are An Important Thing. You Can't Choose How You're Born But You Can Choose How You Die.

Sometimes Fate Is Like A Small Sandstorm That Keeps Changing Directions. You Change Direction But The Sandstorm Chases You. You Turn Again, But The Storm Adjusts.

Between A High, Solid Wall And An Egg That Breaks Against It, I Will Always Stand On The Side Of The Egg.

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

Who Can Really Distinguish Between The Sea And What's Reflected In It? Or Tell The Difference Between The Falling Rain And Loneliness?

All Of Us Are Imperfect Human Beings Living In An Imperfect World.

Imperfect World

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.

I Never Plan. I Never Know What The Next Page Is Going To Be..... But That's The Fun Of Writing A Novel Or A Story, Because I Don't Know What's Going To Happen Next.

The Answer Is Dreams. Dreaming On And On. Entering The World Of Dreams And Never Coming Out. Living In Dreams For The Rest Of Time.

It Is Hard To Be An Individual In Japan.

Things Like That Happen All The Time In This Great Big World Of Ours. It's Like Taking A Boat Out On A Beautiful Lake On A Beautiful Day And Thinking Both The Sky And The Lake Are Beautiful. So Stop Eating Yourself Up Alive. Things Will Go Where They're Supposed To Go If You Just Let Them Take Their Natural Course.

You Know, The Usual Story. Once Upon A Time I Was Playing My Harp By A Spring When A Fairy Appeared Out Of Nowhere, Handed Me A Beretta Model 92, And Told Me To Shoot The White Rabbit Over There For Target Practice.

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

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

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?

A Person’s Destiny Is Something You Look Back At Afterwards, Not Something To Be Known In Advance.

Everybody Feels Safe Belonging Not To The Excluded Minority But To The Excluding Majority. You Think, Oh, I’m Glad That’s Not Me. It’s Basically The Same In All Periods In All Societies. If You Belong To The Majority, You Can Avoid Thinking About Lots Of Troubling Things.

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

No Matter Where I Go, I Still End Up Me. What's Missing Never Changes. The Scenery May Change, But I'm Still The Same Incomplete Person. The Same Missing Elements Torture Me With A Hunger That I Can Never Satisfy. I Think That Lack Itself Is As Close As I'll Come To Defining Myself.

Adults Constantly Raise The Bar On Smart Children, Precisely Because They're Able To Handle It. The Children Get Overwhelmed By The Tasks In Front Of Them And Gradually Lose The Sort Of Openness And Sense Of Accomplishment They Innately Have. When They're Treated Like That, Children Start To Crawl Inside A Shell And Keep Everything Inside. It Takes A Lot Of Time And Effort To Get Them To Open Up Again. Kids' Hearts Are Malleable, But Once They Gel It's Hard To Get Them Back The Way They Were.

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

So The Fact That I’m Me And No One Else Is One Of My Greatest Assets. Emotional Hurt Is The Price A Person Has To Pay In Order To Be Independent.

Inspirational Life

As With Marathon Runs And Lengths Of Toilet Paper, There Had To Be Standards To Measure Up To.

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

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

Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Always Only One Reality!

Waves Of Thought Are Stirring. In A Twilight Corner Of Her Consciousness, One Tiny Fragment And Another Tiny Fragment Call Out Wordlessly To Eachother, Their Spreading Ripples Intermingling.

But The Silence Spoke Volumes.

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.

Something In Her Small Eyes Caught The Sunlight And Glistened, Like A Glacier On The Faraway Face Of A Mountain.

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

I Always Write My Novels With Music (i Don't Listened To The Music Seriously.) Music Seems To Encourage Me.

You Can Hide As Cleverly As You Like, But In The Final Analysis Mimicry Is Deception, Pure And Simple. It Doesn't Solve A Thing.

No Matter How Honestly You Open Up To Someone, There Are Still Things You Cannot Reveal.

I’m Me, And At The Same Time Not Me. That’s What It Felt Like. A Very Still, Quiet Feeling.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Everything In Life Is A Metaphor.

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?

I've Run The Boston Marathon 6 Times Before. I Think The Best Aspects Of The Marathon Are The Beautiful Changes Of The Scenery Along The Route And The Warmth Of The People's Support. I Feel Happier Every Time I Enter This Marathon.

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

Adults Need More Complex Narratives. They Have Their Own Narratives. The Main Characters Are Themselves.

Let Me Tell You Something, Mari. The Ground We Stand On Looks Solid Enough, But If Something Happens It Can Drop Right Out From Under You. And Once That Happens, You've Had It: Things'll Never Be The Same. All You Can Do Is Go On, Living Alone Down There In The Darkness.

Understanding Is But The Sum Of Misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding

Irrepressible Curiosity Vied With An Instinctive Fear.

Kafka Is One Of My Very Favorite Writers. Kafka's Fictional World Is Already So Complete That Trying To Follow In His Steps Is Not Just Pointless, But Quite Risky, Too. What I See Myself Doing, Rather, Is Writing Novels Where, In My Own Way, I Dismantle The Fictional World Of Kafka That Itself Dismantled The Existing Novelistic System.

What You See With Your Eyes Is Not Necessarily Real.

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.

I Can't Build A Simple Shelf. I Have No Idea How To Change An Oil Filter On A Car. I Can't Even Stick A Stamp On An Envelope Straight. And I'm Always Dialling The Wrong Number. But I Have Come Up With A Few Original Cocktails That People Seem To Like.

I Had My Jazz Club And I Had Enough Money. So I Didn't Have To Write For My Living.

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

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.

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.

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.

But If Something Did Happen, It Happened. Whether It's Right Or Wrong. I Accept Everything That Happens, And That's How I Became The Person I Am Now.

My Arm Was Not What She Needed, But The Arm Of Someone Else. My Warmth Was Not What She Needed, But The Warmth Of Someone Else.

You Live By Yourself For A Stretch Of Time And You Get To Staring At Different Objects. Sometimes You Talk To Yourself. You Take Meals In Crowded Joints. You Develop An Intimate Relationship With Your Used Subaru. You Slowly But Surely Become A Has-been.

Intimate Relationships

As Long As I Was Alive, I Was Something. That Was Just How It Was. But Somewhere Along The Way It All Changed. Living Turned Me Into Nothing.

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.

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.

Memory Is So Crazy! It's Like We've Got These Drawers Crammed With Tons Of Useless Stuff. Meanwhile, All The Really Important Things We Just Keep Forgetting, One After The Other.

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

Time Flows In A Strange Way On Sundays.

If You Keep On Writing For Three Years, Every Day, You Should Be Strong. Of Course, You Have To Be Strong Mentally, Also. But In The First Place, You Have To Be Strong Physically. That Is A Very Important Thing. Physically And Mentally You Have To Be Strong.

Everything Just Blows Me Away.

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

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

Those Were Strange Days, Now That I Look Back At Them. In The Midst Of Life, Everything Revolved Around Death.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

And Everywhere, Infinite Options, Infinite Possibilities. An Infinity, And At The Same Time, Zero. We Try To Scoop It All Up In Our Hands, And What We Get Is A Handful Of Zero. That's The City

You Said You're Going Far Away," Tamaru Said. "how Far Away Are We Talking About?" "it's A Distance That Can't Be Measured." "like The Distance That Separates One Person's Heart From Another's.

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

Gazing At The Rain, I Consider What It Means To Belong, To Become Part Of Something. To Have Someone Cry For Me.

Somewhere In His Body--perhaps In The Marrow Of His Bones--he Would Continue To Feel Her Absence.

Since I Have Come To America, I Am Often Asked Whether My Next Novel Will Be Set In America. I Don't Think It Will. I Think I Will Be Living In America For Some Time To Come, But While Living In America, I Would Like To Write About Japanese Society From The Outside.

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.

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

For Novelists Or Musicians, If They Really Want To Create Something, They Need To Go Downstairs And Find A Passage To Get Into The Second Basement. What I Want To Do Is Go Down There, But Still Stay Sane.

You Know What I Think?" She Says. "that People's Memories Are Maybe The Fuel They Burn To Stay Alive. Whether Those Memories Have Any Actual Importance Or Not, It Doesn't Matter As Far As The Maintenance Of Life Is Concerned. They're All Just Fuel. Advertising Fillers In The Newspaper, Philosophy Books, Dirty Pictures In A Magazine, A Bundle Of Ten-thousand-yen Bills: When You Feed 'em To The Fire, They're All Just Paper.

Most Human Activities Are Predicated On The Assumption That Life Goes On. If You Take That Premise Away, What Is There Left?

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

That's What We All Do: Endlessly Take The Long Way Around.

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.

I Get Up Early In The Morning, 4 O'clock, And I Sit At My Desk And What I Do Is Just Dream. After Three Or Four Hours, That's Enough. In The Afternoon, I Run.

Now And Then May Not Be Enough…you Have To Enjoy It While You’re Still Young. Enjoy It To The Fullest. You Can Use The Memories Of What You Did To Warm Your Body After You Get Old And Can’t Do It Anymore.

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.

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

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

Be Fearless, Be Brave, Be Bold, Love Yourself

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.

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

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

Give Yourself Five Minutes To Consider How You Can Turn A Miserable Situation To Your Benefit And That Light Bulb Is Going To Click On.

Then I Noticed That My Shadow Was Crying Too, Shedding Clear, Sharp Shadow Tears. Have You Ever Seen The Shadows Of Tears, Mr. Wind-up Bird? They’re Nothing Like Ordinary Shadows. Nothing At All. They Come Here From Some Other, Distant World, Especially For Our Hearts. Or Maybe Not. It Struck Me Then That The Tears My Shadow Was Shedding Might Be The Real Thing, And The Tears That I Was Shedding Were Just Shadows. You Don’t Get It, I’m Sure, Mr. Wind-up Bird. When A Naked Seventeen-year-old Girl Is Shedding Tears In The Moonlight, Anything Can Happen. It’s True.

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

That's What The World Is , After All: An Endless Battle Of Contrasting Memories.

Our Responsibility Begins With Our Imagination.

If I Have Left A Wound Inside You, It Is Not Just Your Wound But Mine As Well.

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.

Maybe Working On The Little Things As Dutifully And Honestly As We Can Is How We Stay Sane When The World Is Falling Apart.

Learning Another Language Is Like Becoming Another Person.

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.

The Ground We Stand On Looks Solid Enough, But If Something Happens It Can Drop Right Out From Under You.

I've Always Done Whatever I Felt Like Doing In Life. People May Try To Stop Me, And Convince Me I'm Wrong, But I Won't Change.

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.

No, I Don't Want Your Money. The World Moves Less By Money Than By What You Owe People And What They Owe You. I Don't Like To Owe Anybody Anything, So I Keep To Myself As Much On The Lending Side As I Can.

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.

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.

People Soon Get Tired Of Things That Aren't Boring, But Not Of What Is Boring.

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

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

The Morning Air Of The Pasture Turned Steadily Cooler. Day By Day, The Bright Golden Leaves Of The Birches Turned More Spotted As The First Winds Of Winter Slipped Between The Withered Branches And Across The Highlands Toward The Southeast. Stopping In The Center Of The Pasture, I Could Hear The Winds Clearly. No Turning Back, They Pronounced. The Brief Autumn Was Gone.

All Imperfections Are Forced Upon The Imperfect, So The 'perfect' Can Live Content And Oblivious.

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.

At Times Like This, Adults Need A Drink

That's All I Think About These Days. Must Be Because I Have So Much Time To Kill Every Day. When You Don't Have Anything To Do, Your Thoughts Get Really, Really Far Out - So Far Out You Can't Follow Them All The Way To The End.

Reality's Just The Accumulation Of Ominous Prophecies Come To Life. All You Have To Do Is Open A Newspaper On Any Given Day To Weigh The Good News Versus The Bad News, And You'll See What I Mean.

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

Even So, There Were Times I Saw Freshness And Beauty. I Could Smell The Air, And I Really Loved Rock 'n' Roll. Tears Were Warm, And Girls Were Beautiful, Like Dreams. I Liked Movie Theaters, The Darkness And Intimacy, And I Liked The Deep, Sad Summer Nights.

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.

Curiosity Can Bring Guts Out Of Hiding At Times, Maybe Even Get Them Going. But Curiosity Usually Evaporates. Gust Have To Go For The Long Haul. Curiosity's Like A Fun Friend You Can't Really Trust. It Turns You On And Then It Leaves You To Make It On Your Own - With Whatever Guts You Can Muster

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.

Certain Kinds Of Knowledge Rob People Of Their Sleep.

You Throw A Stone Into A Deep Pond. Splash. The Sound Is Big, And It Reverberates Throughout The Surrounding Area. What Comes Out Of The Pond After That? All We Can Do Is Stare At The Pond, Holding Our Breath.

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.

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.

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