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Sometimes I'd Wake Up At Two Or Three In The Morning And Not Be Able To Fall Asleep Again. I'd Get Out Of Bed, Go To The Kitchen, And Pour Myself A Whiskey. Glass In Hand, I'd Look Down At The Darkened Cemetary Across Teh Way And The Headlights Of The Cars On The Road. The Moments Of Time Linking Night And Dawn Were Long And Dark. If I Could Cry, It Might Make Things Easier. But What Would I Cry Over? I Was Too Self Centered To Cry For Other People, Too Old To Cry For Myself.

-Haruki Murakami

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Sometimes I'd Wake Up

Haruki Murakami

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Sometimes I'd Wake Up At Two Or Three In The Morning And Not Be Able To Fall Asleep Again. I'd Get Out Of Bed, Go To The Kitchen, And Pour Myself A Whiskey. Glass In Hand, I'd Look Down At The Darkened Cemetary Across Teh Way And The Headlights Of The Cars On The Road. The Moments Of Time Linking Night And Dawn Were Long And Dark. If I Could Cry, It Might Make Things Easier. But What Would I Cry Over? I Was Too Self Centered To Cry For Other People, Too Old To Cry For Myself.

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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.

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Anyone Who Falls In Love Is Searching For The Missing Pieces Of Themselves.

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

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It's Good When Food Tastes Good, It's Kind Of Like Proof You're Alive.

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Being Active Every Day Makes It Easier To Hear That Inner Voice.

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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.

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Reality Was Utterly Coolheaded And Utterly Lonely.

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Irrepressible Curiosity Vied With An Instinctive Fear.

An Unhealthy Soul Requires A Healthy Body.

Being Alive, If You Had To Define It, Meant Emitting A Variety Of Smells.

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

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

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What Happens When People Open Their Hearts?"... "they Get Better.

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I Used To Think The Years Would Go By In Order, That You Get Older One Year At A Time. But It's Not Like That. It Happens Overnight.

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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.

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

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Will You Wait For Me Forever?

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You’re Really Cute, Midori,” I Corrected Myself. “what Do You Mean Really Cute?” “so Cute The Mountains Crumble And The Oceans Dry Up.

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

How Wonderful It Is To Be Able To Write Someone A Letter! To Feel Like Conveying Your Thoughts To A Person, To Sit At Your Desk And Pick Up A Pen, To Put Your Thoughts Into Words Like This Is Truly Marvelous.

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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.

It Is My Huge Pleasure That My Novels Are Translated Into Languages That Are Read Among Small Numbers Of People.

He Sometimes Wondered If She Had Become Involved With Him Just So That She Could Cry In Someone's Arms. Maybe She Can't Cry Alone, And That's Why She Needs Me.

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

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So What’s Wrong If There Happens To Be One Guy In The World Who Enjoys Trying To Understand You?

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

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

When A Writer Develops A Story, He Is Confronted With A Poison That Is Inside Him. If You Don't Have That Poison, Your Story Will Be Boring And Uninspired. It's Like Fugu: The Flesh Of The Pufferfish Is Extremely Tasty, But The Roe, The Liver, The Heart Can Be Lethally Toxic.

I Was Always Hungry For Love. Just Once, I Wanted To Know What It Was Like To Get My Fill Of It -- To Be Fed So Much Love I Couldn't Take Any More. Just Once.

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

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.

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.

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

Pain Is Inevitable. Suffering Is Optional.

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.

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

Once Upon A Time

What We Needed Were Not Words And Promises But A Steady Accumulation Of Small Realities.

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.

Nothing In The Real World Is As Beautiful As The Illusions Of A Person About To Lose Consciousness.

If You're Young And Talented, It's Like You Have Wings.

Life's No Piece Of Cake, Mind You, But The Recipe's My Own To Fool With.

Distance Might Not Solve Anything, No Matter How Far You Run.

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

At The Entrance To The Original Tower, There Is A Stone Into Which Jung Carved Some Words With His Own Hand: 'cold Or Not, God Is Present.

Hundreds Of Butterflies Flitted In And Out Of Sight Like Short-lived Punctuation Marks In A Stream Of Consciousness Without Beginning Or End.

Punctuation Marks

Concentration Is One Of The Happiest Things In My Life.

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.

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

I Think History Is Collective Memories. In Writing, I'm Using My Own Memory, And I'm Using My Collective Memory.

Writers Have To Keep On Writing If They Want To Mature, Like Caterpillars Endlessly Chewing On Leaves.

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

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

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.

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.

I Realize Now That The Reality Of Things Is Not Something You Convey To People But Something You Make.

We Never Choose Anything At All. Things Happen. Or Not.

She Was A Keen Observer, A Precise User Of Language, Sharp-tongued And Funny. She Could Stir Your Emotions. Yes, Really, That's What She Was So Good At - Stirring People's Emotions, Moving You. And She Knew She Had This Power...i Only Realized Later. At The Time, I Had No Idea What She Was Doing To Me.

Sometimes You’re Just The Sweetest Thing. Like Christmas, Summer Vacation, And A Brand-new Puppy Rolled Into One.

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.

For Me, Running Is Both Exercise And A Metaphor. Running Day After Day, Piling Up The Races, Bit By Bit I Raise The Bar, And By Clearing Each Level I Elevate Myself. At Least That’s Why I’ve Put In The Effort Day After Day: To Raise My Own Level. I’m No Great Runner, By Any Means. I’m At An Ordinary – Or Perhaps More Like Mediocre – Level. But That’s Not The Point. The Point Is Whether Or Not I Improved Over Yesterday. In Long-distance Running The Only Opponent You Have To Beat Is Yourself, The Way You Used To Be.

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

I Didn't Start Running Because Somebody Asked Me To Become A Runner. Just Like I Didn't Become A Novelist Because Someone Asked Me To. One Day, Out Of The Blue, I Wanted To Write A Novel. And One Day, Out Of The Blue, I Started To Run-simply Because I Wanted To. 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.

Instead Of Things I'm Good At, It Might Be Faster To List The Things I Can't Do. I Can't Cook Or Clean The House. My Room's A Mess, And I'm Always Losing Things. I Love Music, But I Can't Sing A Note. I'm Clumsy And Can Barely Sew A Stitch. My Sense Of Direction Is The Pits, And I Can't Tell Left From Right Half The Time. When I Get Angry, I Tend To Break Things. Plates And Pencils, Alarm Clocks. Later On I Regret It, But At The Time I Can't Help Myself. I Have No Money In The Bank. I'm Bashful For No Reason, And I Have Hardly Any Friends To Speak Of.

Time, Of Course, Topples Everyone In Its Path Equally- The Way That Driver Beats His Old Horse Until It Dies. But The Thrashing We Receive Is One Of Frightful Gentleness. Few Of Us Even Realize That We Are Being Beaten.

I Don’t Know What It Means To Live.

Please Think Of Me Like An Endangered Species And Just Observe Me Quietly From Far Away. If You Try To Talk To Me Or Touch Me Casually, I May Get Intimidated And Bite You. So Please Be Careful.

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 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.

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

Most Everything You Think You Know About Me Is Nothing More Than Memories.

Results Aside, The Ability To Have Complete Faith In Another Human Being Is One Of The Finest Qualities A Person Can Possess.

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.

And Once The Storm Is Over, You Won’t Remember How You Made It Through, How You Managed To Survive. You Won’t Even Be Sure, Whether The Storm Is Really Over. But One Thing Is Certain. When You Come Out Of The Storm, You Won’t Be The Same Person Who Walked In. That’s What This Storm’s All About.

As Time Goes On, You'll Understand. What Lasts, Lasts; What Doesn't, Doesn't. Time Solves Most Things. And What Time Can't Solve, You Have To Solve Yourself.

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

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