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Sometimes We Don't Need Words. Rather, It's Words That Need Us. If We Were No Longer Here, Words Would Lose Their Whole Function. They Would End Up As Words That Are Never Spoken, And Words That Aren't Spoken Are No Longer Words. - (where I'm Likely To Find It)

-Haruki Murakami

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Sometimes We Don't Need

Haruki Murakami

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Sometimes We Don't Need Words. Rather, It's Words That Need Us. If We Were No Longer Here, Words Would Lose Their Whole Function. They Would End Up As Words That Are Never Spoken, And Words That Aren't Spoken Are No Longer Words. - (where I'm Likely To Find It)

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If A Person Remains Tense For A Long Time He Might Not Notice It Himself, But It’s Like His Nerves Are A Piece Of Rubber That Has Been Stretched Out. It’s Hard To Go Back To The Original Shape.

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.

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

An Expectation Was There, Mixed In With So Many Other Emotions - Excitement, Resignation, Hesitation, Confusion, Fear - That Would Well Up Then Wither On The Vine. 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.

She's Kind Of Funny Looking. Her Face Is Out Of Balance--broad Forehead, Button Nose, Freckled Cheeks, And Pointy Ears. A Slammed-together, Rough Sort Of Face You Can't Ignore. Still, The Whole Package Isn't So Bad. For All I Know Maybe She's Not So Wild About Her Own Looks, But She Seems Comfortable With Who She Is, And That's The Important Thing.

It Occurred To Me What A Simple Thing Reality Is, How Easy It Is To Make It Work. It's Just Reality. Just Housework. Just A Home. Like Running A Simple Machine. Once You Learn To Run It, It's Just A Matter Of Repetition. You Push This Button And Pull That Lever. You Adjust A Gauge, Put On The Lid, Set The Timer. The Same Thing, Over And Over.

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.

No Matter What You Tell Me, No Matter How Legitimate Your Reasons, I Can Never Just Forget About You, I Can Never Push The Years We Spent Together Out Of My Mind. I Can't Do It Because It Really Happened, They Are Part Of My Life, And There Is No Way I Can Just Erase Them. That Would Be The Same As Erasing My Own Self.

You Make Do With What You Have. As You Age You Learn Even To Be Happy With What You Have.

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.

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.

Any Explanation Or Logic That Explains Everything So Easily Has A Hidden Trap In It. I'm Speaking From Experience. Somebody Once Said If It's Something A Single Book Can Explain, It's Not Worth Having Explained. What I Mean Is Don't Leap To Any Conclusions.

No Matter How Far You Travel, You Can Never Get Away From Yourself.

You Could Be Anybody When You're Writing. That's The Reason That I'm Writing: To Be Anybody. You Can Put Your Feet In Various Shoes And Experience Anything.

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.

Whether It's Good For Anything Or Not, Cool Or Totally Uncool, In The Final Analysis What's Most Important Is What You Can't See But Can Feel In Your Heart.

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.

Is It Possible To Become Friends With A Butterfly?

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

Imperfect World

I'd Made It Back To The Land Of The Living. No Matter How Boring Or Mediocre A World It Might Be, This Was 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.

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.

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.

There Weren't Any Curtains In The Windows, And The Books That Didn't Fit Into The Bookshelf Lay Piled On The Floor Like A Bunch Of Intellectual Refugees.

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

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

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

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.

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.

One Of These Days They'll Be Making A Film Where The Whole Human Race Gets Wiped Out In A Nuclear War, But Everything Works Out In The End.

Like A Chinese Box, The World Of The Novel Contained Smaller Worlds, And Inside Those Were Yet Smaller Worlds. Together, These Worlds Made Up A Single Universe, And The Universe Waited There In The Book To Be Discovered By The Reader.

Whenever I Get Into Something, I Shut Out Everything Else.

Time Flows In A Strange Way On Sundays.

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.

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.

Anyone Who Falls In Love Is Searching For The Missing Pieces Of Themselves. So Anyone Who's In Love Gets Sad When They Think Of Their Lover. It's Like Stepping Back Inside A Room You Have Fond Memories Of, One You Haven't Seen In A Long Time.

Reading Was Like An Addiction; I Read While I Ate, On The Train, In Bed Until Late At Night, In School, Where I'd Keep The Book Hidden So I Could Read During Class. Before Long I Bought A Small Stereo And Spent All My Time In My Room, Listening To Jazz Records. But I Had Almost No Desire To Talk To Anyone About The Experience I Gained Through Books And Music. I Felt Happy Just Being Me And No One Else. In That Sense I Could Be Called A Stack-up Loner.

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

I Was Twenty-one At The Time, About To Turn Twenty-two. No Prospect Of Graduating Soon, And Yet No Reason To Quit School. Caught In The Most Curiously Depressing Circumstances. For Months I'd Been Stuck, Unable To Take One Step In Any New Direction. The World Kept Moving On; I Alone Was At A Standstill. In The Autumn, Everything Took On A Desolate Cast, The Colors Swiftly Fading Before My Eyes. The Sunlight, The Smell Of The Grass, The Faintest Patter Of Rain, Everything Got On My Nerves.

It's Hard To Tell The Difference Between Sea And Sky, Between Voyager And Sea. Between Reality And The Workings Of The Heart.

Even Chance Meetings Are The Result Of Karma… Things In Life Are Fated By Our Previous Lives. That Even In The Smallest Events There’s No Such Thing As Coincidence.

If You Listen To The Radio For A Whole Hour There's Maybe One Decent Song. The Rest Is Mass-produced Garbage

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.

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. Over And Over You Play This Out, Like Some Ominous Dance With Death Just Before Dawn. Why? Because This Storm Isn't Something That Blew In From Far Away, Something That Has Nothing To Do With You. This Storm Is You. Something Inside Of You. So All You Can Do Is Give In To It, Step Right Inside The Storm, Closing Your Eyes And Plugging Up Your Ears So The Sand Doesn't Get In, And Walk Through It, Step By Step.

The Faintest Gleam Of Their Lost Memories Glimmered For The Briefest Moment In Their Hearts.

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

This Was Something Sure To Be Crammed Full Of Warm Secrets, Like An Antique Clock Built When Peace Filled The World.

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.

I Can Bear Any Pain As Long As It Has Meaning.

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.

It's Like A Kid Standing At The Window Watching The Rain.

How Much Do You Love Me?' Midori Asked. 'enough To Melt All The Tigers In The World To Butter,' I Said.

You Got To Know Your Limits. Once Is Enough, But You Got To Learn. A Little Caution Never Hurt Anyone. A Good Woodsman Has Only One Scar On Him. No More, No Less.

Human Beings Are Ultimately Nothing But Carriers-passageways- For Genes. They Ride Us Into The Ground Like Racehorses From Generation To Generation. Genes Don't Think About What Constitutes Good Or Evil. They Don't Care Whether We Are Happy Or Unhappy. We're Just Means To An End For Them. The Only Thing They Think About Is What Is Most Efficient For Them.

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.

I Keep To This Routine Every Day Without Variation. The Repetition Itself Becomes The Important Thing; It's A Form Of Mesmerism. I Mesmerize Myself To Reach A Deeper State Of Mind.

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

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?

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.

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

What Do I Like About Math? , When I've Got Figures In Front Of Me, It Relaxes Me. Kind Of Like, Everything Fits Where It Belongs.

You Know, Eating's Much More Important Than Most People Think. There Comes A Time In Your Life When You've Just Got To Have Something Super-delicious. And When You're Standing At That Crossroads Your Whole Life Can Change, Depending On Which One You Go Into - The Good Restaurant Or The Awful One.

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.

Listening To The Music While Stretching Her Body Close To Its Limit, She Was Able To Attain A Mysterious Calm. She Was Simultaneously The Torturer And The Tortured, The Forcer And The Forced. This Sense Of Inner-directed Self-sufficiency Was What She Wanted Most Of All. It Gave Her Deep Solace.

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?

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.

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

People Are Drawn Deeper Into Tragedy Not By Their Defects But By Their Virtues.

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.

I'll Be Happy If Running And I Can Grow Old Together.

"they Tell Us That The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself, But I Don't Believe That." He Said. Then, A Moment Later, He Added: "oh, The Fear Is There, All Right. It Comes To Us In Many Different Forms, At Different Times, And Overwhelms Us. But The Most Frightening Thing We Can Do At Such Times Is To Turn Our Backs On It, To Close Our Eyes. For Then We Take The Most Precious Thing Inside Us And Surrender It To Something Else. In My Case, That Something Was The Wave."

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

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.

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.

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.

Certain Kinds Of Knowledge Rob People Of Their Sleep.

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

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.

Concentration Is One Of The Happiest Things In My Life.

You Can Have Tons Of Talent, But It Won't Necessarily Keep You Fed. If You Have Sharp Instincts, Through, You'll Never Go Hungry.

I Was In My House, Alone In The Living Room, Anxious About You, Watching The Flashes Of Lightning. And A Flash Of Lightning Lit Up This Truth For Me, Right In Front Of My Eye. That Night I Lost You, I Lost Something Inside Me. Or Perhaps Several Things. Something Central To My Existence, The Very Support For Who I Am As A Person

Sometimes When I Look At You, I Feel I'm Gazing At A Distant Star. It's Dazzling, But The Light Is From Tens Of Thousands Of Years Ago. Maybe The Star Doesn't Even Exist Any More. Yet Sometimes That Light Seems More Real To Me Than Anything.

It Takes Years To Build Up, It Takes Moments To Destroy.

How Can The Mind Be So Imperfect?" She Says With A Smile. I Look At My Hands. Bathed In The Moonlight, They Seem Like Statues, Proportioned To No Purpose. "it May Well Be Imperfect," I Say, "but It Leaves Traces. And We Can Follow Those Traces, Like Footsteps In The Snow." "where Do The Lead?" "to Oneself," I Answer. "that's Where The Mind Is. Without The Mind, Nothing Leads Anywhere." I Look Up. The Winter Moon Is Brilliant, Over The Town, Above The Wall. "not One Thing Is Your Fault," I Comfort Her.

If She Did Experience Sex-or Something Close To It-in High School, I'm Sure It Would Have Been Less Out Of Sexual Desire Or Love Than Literary Curiosity.

You End Up Exhausted And Spent, But Later, In Retrospect, You Realize What It All Was For. The Parts Fall Into Place, And You Can See The Whole Picture And Finally Understand The Role Each Individual Part Plays. The Dawn Comes, The Sky Grows Light, And The Colors And Shapes Of The Roofs Of Houses, Which You Could Only Glimpse Vaguely Before, Come Into Focus.

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.

Everything. Things You Lost. Things You’re Gonna Lose. Everything. Here’s Where It All Ties Together.

Loving Another Person Is A Wonderful Thing, And If That Love Is Sincere, No One Ends Up Tossed Into A Labyrinth. You Have To Have More Faith In Yourself.

If You Do Anything Out Of The Ordinary, You Can Be Sure Someone, Somewhere, Will Get Upset.

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.

Sheep Hurt My Father, And Through My Father, Sheep Have Also Hurt Me.

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

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.

My Father Always Told Me: 'give Somebody A Hand And He'll Take An Arm.

Let The World Move Along As It Pleased. If It Had Any Business With Him, It Would Be Sure To Tell Him.

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.

Killing Time Is Not An Easy Job.

I’ve Built A Wall Around Me, Never Letting Anybody Inside And Trying Not To Venture Outside Myself

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

My Priority Is My Books, At Least At This Point. What I Have To Do Is Write The Narrative Of This Time.

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.

Now All You Can Do Is Wait. It Must Be Hard For You, But There Is A Right Time For Everything. Like The Ebb And Flow Of Tides. No One Can Do Anything To Change Them. When It Is Time To Wait, You Must Wait.

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.

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.

What A Terrible Thing It Is To Wound Someone You Really Care For And To Do It So Unconsciously.

I Wrote My First Two Long Novels And An Anthology Of Short Narratives, When I Was A Manager Of My Own Jazz Bar. There Was Not Enough Time To Write And I Didn't Know How To Write Novels. Therefore, I Made Written Collages Of Aphorisms And Rags.

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

Everything In Life Is A Metaphor.

I Don’t Know What It Means To Live.

Silence. How Long It Lasted, I Couldn't Tell. It Might Have Been Five Seconds, It Might Have Been A Minute. Time Wasn't Fixed. It Wavered, Stretched, Shrank. Or Was It Me That Wavered, Stretched, And Shrank In The Silence? I Was Warped In The Folds Of Time, Like A Reflection In A Fun House Mirror.

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.

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

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

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

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

But Why Should You Be Interested In Me?" Good Question. I Can’t Explain It Myself Right This Moment. But Maybe – Just Maybe – If We Start Getting Together And Talking, After A While Something Like Francis Lai’s Soundtrack Music Will Start Playing In The Background, And A Whole Slew Of Concrete Reasons Why I’m Interested In You Will Line Up Out Of Nowhere. With Luck, It Might Even Snow For Us.

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.

Although I Didn't Think So At The Time, Things Were A Lot Simpler In 1969. All You Had To Do To Express Yourself Was Throw Rocks At Riot Police. But With Today's Sophistication, Who's In A Position To Throw Rocks? Who's Going To Brave What Tear Gas? C'mon, That's The Way It Is. Everything Is Rigged, Tied Into That Massive Capital Web, And Beyond This Web There's Another Web. Nobody's Going Anywhere. You Throw A Rock And It'll Come Right Back At You.

What I Was Chasing In Circles Must Have Been The Tail Of The Darkness Inside Me.

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

Not Just Beautiful, Though — The Stars Are Like The Trees In The Forest, Alive And Breathing. And They’re Watching Me. What I’ve Up Till Now, What I’m Going To Do — They Know It All. Nothing Gets Past Their Watchful Eyes. As I Sit There Under The Shining Night Sky, Again A Violent Fear Takes Hold Of Me. My Heart’s Pounding A Mile A Minute, And I Can Barely Breathe. All These Millions Of Stars Looking Down On Me, And I’ve Never Given Them More Than A Passing Thought Before. Not Just The Stars — How Many Other Things Haven’t I Noticed In The World, Things I Know Nothing About?

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.

And Her Sleep Was Too Long And Deep For That:so Deep That She Left Her Normal Reality Behind.

I Don't Think Jealousy Has Much Of A Connection With Real, Objective Conditions. Like If You're Fortunate You're Not Jealous, But If Life Hasn't Blessed You, You Are Jealous. Jealousy Doesn't Work That Way. It's More Like A Tumor Secretly Growing Inside Us That Gets Bigger And Bigger, Beyond All Reason. Even If You Find Out It's There, There's Nothing You Can Do To Stop It.

Another Person's Life Is That Person's Life. You Can't Take Responsibility.

Taking Responsibility

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.

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.

You Know What I'd Really Like To Do The Most Right Now? Climb Up To The Top Of Some High Place Like The Pyramids. The Highest Place I Can Find. Where You Can See Forever. Stand On The Very Top, Look All Around The World, See All The Scenery, And See With My Own Eyes What's Been Lost From The World.

You’re Here,” I Continued. “at Least You Look As If You’re Here. But Maybe You Aren’t. Maybe It’s Just Your Shadow. The Real You May Be Someplace Else. Or Maybe You Already Disappeared, A Long, Long Time Ago. I Reach Out My Hand To See, But You’ve Hidden Yourself Behind A Cloud Of Probablys. Do You Think We Can Go On Like This Forever?

Life Is Here, Death Is Over There. I Am Here, Not Over There.

I'm Not Human. I'm A Piece Of Machinery. I Don't Need To Feel A Thing. Just Forge On Ahead.

Mountains, According To The Angle Of View, The Season, The Time Of Day, The Beholder's Frame Of Mind, Or Any One Thing, Can Effectively Change Their Appearance. Thus, It Is Essential To Recognize That We Can Never Know More Than One Side, One Small Aspect Of A Mountain.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

He Felt As If His Heart Had Dried Up. I Needed Her He Thought. I Needed Someone Like Her To Fill The Void Inside Me. But I Wasn’t Able To Fill The Void Inside Her. Until The Bitter End, The Emptiness Inside Her Was Hers Alone.

But If You Knew You Might Not Be Able To See It Again Tomorrow, Everything Would Suddenly Become Special And Precious, Wouldn’t It?

People Sometimes Sneer At Those Who Run Every Day, Claiming They'll Go To Any Length To Live Longer. But Don't Think That's The Reason Most People Run. Most Runners Run Not Because They Want To Live Longer, But Because They Want To Live Life To The Fullest.

I Wasn't Particularly Afraid Of Death Itself. As Shakespeare Said, Die This Year And You Don't Have To Die The Next.

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

Once Upon A Time

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

Wasn't It Better If They Kept This Desire To See Each Other Hidden Within Them, And Never Actually Got Together? That Way, There Would Always Be Hope In Their Hearts. That Hope Would Be A Small, Yet Vital Flame That Warmed Them To Their Core-- A Tiny Flame To Cup One's Hands Around And Protect From The Wind, A Flame That The Violent Winds Of Reality Might Easily Extinguish.

Were The Stars Out When I Left The House Last Evening? All I Could Remember Was The Couple In The Skyline Listening To Duran Duran. Stars? Who Remembers Stars? Come To Think Of It, Had I Even Looked Up At The Sky Recently? Had The Stars Been Wiped Out Of The Sky Three Months Ago, I Wouldn’t Have Known.

Don’t You See? You And He Might Never Cross Paths Again. Of Course, A Chance Meeting Could Occur, And I Hope It Happens. I Really Do, For Your Sake. But Realistically Speaking, You Have To See There’s A Huge Possibility You’ll Never Be Able To Meet Him Again. And Even If You Do Meet, He Might Already Be Married To Somebody Else. He Might Have Two Kids. Isn’t That So? And In That Case, You May Have To Live The Rest Of Your Life Alone, Never Being Joined With The One Person You Love In All The World. Don’t You Find That Scary?

There's Not Much You Can Do About Time - It Just Keeps On Passing. But Experience? Don't Tell Me That. I'm Not Proud Of It, But I Don't Have Any Sexual Desire. And What Sort Of Experience Can A Writer Have If She Doesn't Feel Passion? It'd Be Like A Chef Without An Appetite.

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.

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

Thinking About Spaghetti That Boils Eternally But Is Never Done Is A Sad, Sad Thing.

From The Girl Who Sat Before Me Now...surged A Fresh And Physical Life Force. She Was Like A Small Animal That Has Popped Into The World With The Coming Of Spring. Her Eyes Moved Like An Independent Organism With Joy, Laughter, Anger, Amazement, And Despair. I Hadn't Seen A Face So Vivid And Expressive In Ages, And I Enjoyed Watching It Live And Move.

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.

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

I Wrote A Huge Number Of Letters That Spring: One A Week To Naoko, Several To Reiko, And Several More To Midori. I Wrote Letters In The Classroom, I Wrote Letters At My Desk At Home With Seagull In My Lap, I Wrote Letters At Empty Tables During My Breaks At The Italian Restaurant. It Was As If I Were Writing Letters To Hold Together The Pieces Of My Crumbling Life.

Whatever It Is You're Seeking Won't Come In The Form You're Expecting.

On Any Given Day, Something Claims Our Attention. Anything At All, Inconsequential Things. A Rosebud, A Misplaced Hat, That Sweater We Liked As A Child, An Old Gene Pitney Record. A Parade Of Trivia With No Place To Go. Things That Bump Around In Our Consciousness For Two Or Three Days Then Go Back To Wherever They Came From... To Darkness. We've Got All These Wells Dug In Our Hearts. While Above The Wells, Birds Flit Back And Forth.

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.

To Know One’s Own State Is Not A Simple Matter. One Cannot Look Directly At One’s Own Face With One’s Own Eyes, For Example. One Has No Choice But To Look At One’s Reflection In The Mirror. Through Experience, We Come To Believe That The Image Is Correct, But That Is All.

I'll Write To You. A Super-long Letter, Like In An Old-fashioned Novel

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.

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.

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.

It Seemed To Me That This World Has A Serious Shortage Of Both Logic And Kindness.

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.

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

I Closed My Own Jazz Bar So I Could Be A Man Who Can Write Novels As I Like. I Was Pleased About That. This Pleasure Was Connected To The Pleasure Of Writing.

[...] Shimamoto Had Her Own Little World Within Her. A World That Was For Her Alone, One I Could Not Enter.

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'm Not So Weird To Me.

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.

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

People With Dark Souls Have Nothing But Dark Dreams. People With Really Dark Souls Do Nothing But Dream.

I Often Recall These Words When I Am Writing, And I Think To Myself, “it’s True. There Aren’t Any New Words. Our Job Is To Give New Meanings And Special Overtones To Absolutely Ordinary Words.” I Find The Thought Reassuring. It Means That Vast, Unknown Stretches Still Lie Before Us, Fertile Territories Just Waiting For Us To Cultivate Them.

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

In Other Words, Let's Face It: Life Is Basically Unfair. But Even In A Situation That's Unfair, I Think It's Possible To Seek Out A Kind Of Fairness. Of Course, That Might Take Time And Effort. And Maybe It Won't Seem To Be Worth All That. It's Up To Each Individual To Decide Whether Or Not It Is.

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.

I'm A Writer, Not A Professional Runner. It's Fun And It Helps Me Write. I Need Powerful Concentration.

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.

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

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

The Thoughts That Occur To Me While I’m Running Are Like Clouds In The Sky. Clouds Of All Different Sizes. They Come And They Go, While The Sky Remains The Same Sky Always. The Clouds Are Mere Guests In The Sky That Pass Away And Vanish, Leaving Behind The Sky.

Narratives Have The Same Power, I Think. Some Readers Of My Novels Ask Me, "why Do You Understand Me?". That's A Huge Pleasure Of Mine Because It Means That Readers And I Can Make Our Narratives Relative.

Some Things Are Forgotten, Some Things Disappear, Some Things Die.

Is Action Merely The Incidental Product Of Thought, Or Is Thought The Consequential Product Of Action?

What We Seek Is Some Kind Of Compensation For What We Put Up With.

Don't Pointless Things Have A Place, Too, In This Far-from-perfect World?

Everyone, Deep In Their Hearts, Is Waiting For The End Of The World To Come.

I'm A Writer. I Don't Support Any War. That's My Principle.

Life Is A Lot More Fragile Than We Think. So You Should Treat Others In A Way That Leaves No Regrets. Fairly, And If Possible, Sincerely.

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

The Years Nineteen And Twenty Are A Crucial Stage In The Maturation Of Character, And If You Allow Yourself To Become Warped When You're That Age, It Will Cause You Pain When You're Older.

Be Fearless, Be Brave, Be Bold, Love Yourself

There's No Such Thing As Perfect Writing, Just Like There's No Such Thing As Perfect Despair.

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.

Memory Is Like Fiction; Or Else It's Fiction That's Like Memory. This Really Came Home To Me Once I Started Writing Fiction, That Memory Seemd A Kind Of Fiction, Or Vice Versa. Either Way, No Matter How Hard You Try To Put Everything Neatly Into Shape, The Context Wanders This Way And That, Until Finally The Context Isn't Even There Anymore... Warm With Life, Hopeless Unstable.

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.

The Library Was Like A Second Home. Or Maybe More Like A Real Home, More Than The Place I Lived In. By Going Every Day I Got To Know All The Lady Librarians Who Worked There. They Knew My Name And Always Said Hi. I Was Painfully Shy, Though, And Could Barely Reply.

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

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

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