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Then When Dusk Began To Settle He Would Retrace His Steps, Back To His Own World. And On The Way Home, A Loneliness Would Always Claim His Heart. He Could Never Quite Get A Grip On What It Was. It Just Seemed That Whatever Lay Waiting "out There" Was All Too Vast, Too Overwhelming For Him To Possibly Ever Make A Dent In.

-Haruki Murakami

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Then When Dusk Began

Haruki Murakami

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Then When Dusk Began To Settle He Would Retrace His Steps, Back To His Own World. And On The Way Home, A Loneliness Would Always Claim His Heart. He Could Never Quite Get A Grip On What It Was. It Just Seemed That Whatever Lay Waiting "out There" Was All Too Vast, Too Overwhelming For Him To Possibly Ever Make A Dent In.

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She Was Truly A Beautiful Girl. I Could Feel A Small Polished Stone Sinking Through The Darkest Waters Of My Heart. All Those Deep Convoluted Channels And Passageways, And Yet She Managed To Toss Her Pebble Right Down To The Bottom Of It All.

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

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

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.

The Best Point Of My Novels, I Think, Is Their Humor. I Want To Keep Many My Works Humorous.

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.

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

Tengo Could Hardly Believe It-- That In This Frantic, Labyrinth-like World, Two People's Hearts-- A Boy's And A Girl's-- Could Be Connected, Unchanged, Even Though They Hadn't Seen Each Other For Twenty Years.

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.

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.

I’m Free, I Think. I Shut My Eyes And Think Hard And Deep About How Free I Am, But I Can’t Really Understand What It Means. All I Know Is I’m Totally Alone. All Alone In An Unfamiliar Place, Like Some Solitary Explorer Who’s Lost His Compass And His Map. Is This What It Means To Be Free? I Don’t Know, And I Give Up Thinking About It.

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

Where There Is Light, There Must Be Shadow, Where There Is Shadow There Must Be Light. There Is No Shadow Without Light And No Light Without Shadow.... We Do Not Know If The So-called Little People Are Good Or Evil. This Is, In A Sense, Something That Surpasses Our Understanding And Our Definitions. We Have Lived With Them Since Long, Long Ago-- From A Time Before Good And Evil Even Existed, When People's Minds Were Still Benighted.

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

The Ocean Was One Of The Greatest Things He Had Ever Seen In His Life—bigger And Deeper Than Anything He Had Imagined. It Changed Its Color And Shape And Expression According To Time And Place And Weather. It Aroused A Deep Sadness In His Heart, And At The Same Time It Brought His Heart Peace And Comfort.

When I Was Fifteen, All I Wanted Was To Go Off To Some Other World, A Place Beyond Anybody’s Reach. A Place Beyond The Flow Of Time.” - But There’s No Place Like That In This World. - Exactly. Which Is Why I’m Living Here, In This World Where Things Are Continually Damaged, Where The Heart Is Fickle, Where Time Flows Past Without A Break.

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.

I Used To Run A Full Marathon In Three Hours And 25 Or 26 Minutes. Not Any More.

His Heart, Like Mine, Was Ticking Off The Time Allotted To His Small Restless Body.

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?

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?

It's The Real World, Full Of Gaps And Inconsistencies And Anticlimaxes.

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

I Wondered If She Was Trying To Convey Something To Me, Something She Could Not Put Into Words - Something Prior To Words That She Could Not Grasp Within Herself And Which Therefore Had No Hope Of Ever Turning Into Words.

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

Nobody Likes Being Alone That Much. I Don't Go Out Of My Way To Make Friends, That's All. It Just Leads To Disappointment.

I Think Certain Types Of Processes Don’t Allow For Any Variation. If You Have To Be Part Of That Process, All You Can Do Is Transform—or Perhaps Distort—yourself Through That Persistent Repetition, And Make That Process A Part Of Your Own Personality.

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

Music Always Stimulates My Imagination. When I'm Writing I Usually Have Some Baroque Music On Low In The Background Chamber Music By Bach, Telemann, And The Like.

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

Don't You Think It Would Be Wonderful To Get Rid Of Everything And Everybody And Just Go Some Place Where You Don't Know A Soul?

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

What You See With Your Eyes Is Not Necessarily Real.

I Laughed. “you’re Too Young To Be So … Pessimistic,” I Said, Using The English Word. “pessi-what?” “pessimistic. It Means Looking Only At The Dark Side Of Things.” “pessimistic … Pessimistic …” She Repeated The English To Herself Over And Over, And Then She Looked Up At Me With A Fierce Glare. “i’m Only Sixteen,” She Said, “and I Don’t Know Much About The World, But I Do Know One Thing For Sure. If I’m Pessimistic, Then The Adults In This World Who Are Not Pessimistic Are A Bunch Of Idiots.

No Matter What Form The Relationship Might Take, He Was The Only Person She Could Picture Sharing Her Life With.

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

Whenever She Felt Like Crying, She Would Instead Become Angry—at Someone Else Or At Herself—which Meant That It Was Rare For Her To Shed Tears.

Angry At Someone

The Facts And Techniques Or Whatever They Teach You In Class Isn't Going To Be Veryuseful In The Real World, That's For Sure.

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

Isn't Life Strange? There Are People Who Have So Many Leftover Clothes They Can't Stuff Them All In Their Wardrobe. And Then There Are People Like Me, Whose Socks Never Match.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

My Face, My Self, What Would They Mean To Anybody? Just Another Stiff. So This Self Of Mine Passes Some Other's Self On The Street - What Do We Have To Say To Each Other? Hey There! Hi Ya!that's About It. Nobody Raises A Hand. No One Turns Around To Take Another Look.

I'm Tired Of Living Unable To Love Anyone. I Don't Have A Single Friend - Not One. And, Worst Of All, I Can't Even Love Myself. Why Is That? Why Can't I Love Myself? It's Because I Can't Love Anyone Else. A Person Learns How To Love Himself Through The Simple Acts Of Loving And Being Loved By Someone Else. Do You Understand What I Am Saying? A Person Who Is Incapable Of Loving Another Cannot Properly Love Himself.

I Can't Imagine How American Readers Will React To A Novel, But If The Story Is Appealing It Doesn't Matter Much If You Don't Catch All The Detail. I'm Not Too Familiar With The Geography Of Nineteenth Century London, For Instance, But I Still Enjoy Reading Dickens.

At Any Rate, That’s How I Started Running. Thirty Three—that’s How Old I Was Then. Still Young Enough, Though No Longer A Young Man. The Age That Jesus Christ Died. The Age That Scott Fitzgerald Started To Go Downhill. That Age May Be A Kind Of Crossroads In Life. That Was The Age When I Began My Life As A Runner, And It Was My Belated, But Real, Starting Point As A Novelist.

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

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We're Both Looking At The Same Moon, In The Same World. We're Connected To Reality By The Same Line. All I Have To Do Is Quietly Draw It Towards Me.

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

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I Hate Requests. They Make Me Feel Unhappy. It's Like When I Take A Book Out Of The Library. As Soon As I Start To Read It, All I Can Think About Is When I'll Finish It.

Each Of Us Possesses A Tangible Living Soul. The System Has No Such Thing. We Must Not Allow The System To Exploit Us.

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.

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

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?

...most People In The World Don't Really Use Their Brains To Think. And People Who Don't Think Are The Ones Who Don't Listen To Others.

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

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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.

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Silence, I Discover, Is Something You Can Actually Hear.

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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.

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.

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

The World Would Be A Pretty Dull Place If It Were Made Up Only Of The First-rate, Right?

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

Some Things, You Know, If You Say Them, It Makes Them Not True?

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.

When It's Raining Like This," Said Naoko, "it Feels As If We're The Only Ones In The World. I Wish It Would Just Keep Raining So The Three Of Us Could Stay Together.

I Closed My Eyes And Listened Carefully For The Descendants Of Sputnik, Even Now Circling The Earth, Gravity Their Only Tie To The Planet. Lonely Metal Souls In The Unimpeded Darkness Of Space, They Meet, Pass Each Other, And Part, Never To Meet Again. No Words Passing Between Them. No Promises To Keep.

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

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

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

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

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Properly Speaking, Should Any Individual Ever Have Exact, Clear Knowledge Of His Own Core Consciousness?" "i Wouldn't Know," I Said. "nor Would We," Said The Scientists.

Then She Took My Hand And Touched It To The Wound Beside Her Eye. I Caressed The Half-inch Scar. As I Did So, The Waves Of Her Consciousness Pulsed Through My Fingertips And Into Me - A Delicate Resonance Of Longing. Probably Someone Should Take This Girl In His Arms And Hold Her Tight, I Thought. Probably Someone Other Than Me. Someone Qualified To Give Her Something. "goodbye, Mr. Wind-up Bird. See You Again Sometime.

Everyone May Be Ordinary, But They're Not Normal.

I Started Writing At The Kitchen Table After Midnight. It Took Ten Months To Finish That First Book; I Sent It To A Publisher And I Got Some Kind Of Prize, So It Was Like A Dream - I Was Surprised To Find It Happening.

In A Sense, I'm The One Who Ruined Me: I Did It Myself.

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

But Knowing What I Don’t Want To Do Doesn’t Help Me Figure Out What I Do Want To Do. I Could Do Just About Anything If Somebody Made Me. But I Don’t Have An Image Of The One Thing I Really Want To Do. That’s My Problem Now. I Can’t Find The Image.

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.

I Would Stare At The Grains Of Light Suspended In That Silent Space, Struggling To See Into My Own Heart. What Did I Want? And What Did Others Want From Me? But I Could Never Find The Answers. Sometimes I Would Reach Out And Try To Grasp The Grains Of Light, But My Fingers Touched Nothing.

You Said That The Mind Is Like The Wind But Perhaps It Is We Who Are Like The Wind Knowing Nothing, Simply Blowing Through. Never Aging, Never Dying.

Knowing Nothing

You Know 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.

I Have This Strange Feeling That I'm Not Myself Anymore. It's Hard To Put Into Words, But I Guess It's Like I Was Fast Asleep, And Someone Came, Disassembled Me, And Hurriedly Put Me Back Together Again. That Sort Of Feeling.

Become Like A Sheet Of Blotting Paper And Soak It All In. Later On You Can Figure Out What To Keep And What To Unload.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

But Actually Time Isn't A Straight Line. It Doesn't Ave A Shape. In All Senses Of The Term, It Doesn't Have Any Form. But Since We Can't Picture Something Without Form In Our Minds, For The Sake Of Convenience We Understand It As A Straight Line. At This Point, Humans Are The Only Ones Who Can Make That Sort Of Conceptual Substitution.

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.

No Mistake About It. Ice Is Cold; Roses Are Red; I'm In Love. And This Love Is About To Carry Me Off Somewhere. The Current's Too Overpowering; I Don't Have Any Choice. It May Very Well Be A Special Place, Some Place I've Never Seen Before. Danger May Be Lurking There, Something That May End Up Wounding Me Deeply, Fatally. I Might End Up Losing Everything. But There's No Turning Back. I Can Only Go With The Flow. Even If It Means I'll Be Burned Up, Gone Forever.

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.

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.

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.

The Earth, Time, Concepts, Love, Life, Faith Justice, Evil - They're All Fluid And In Transition. They Don't Stay In One Form Or In One Place Forever. The Whole Universe Is Like Some Big Fedex Box.

The Best Musicians Transpose Consciousness Into Sound; Painters Do The Same For Color And Shape.

I Have Been Told I've Got A Darkish Personality. A Few Times." Takahashi Swings His Trombone Case From His Right Shoulder To His Left. Then He Says, "it's Not As If Our Lives Are Divided Simply Into Light And Dark. There's Shadowy Middle Ground. Recognizing And Understanding The Shadows Is What A Healthy Intelligence Does. And To Acquire A Healthy Intelligence Takes A Certain Amount Of Time And Effort. I Don't Think You Have A Particularly Dark Character.

It Is Hard To Be An Individual In Japan.

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

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

Only Where There Is Disillusionment And Depression And Sorrow Does Happiness Arise; Without The Despair Of Loss, There Is No Hope.

You Know What It’s Like When You’re Trying To Fall Asleep And It Only Makes You More Wide Awake?

The Journey I'm Taking Is Inside Me. Just Like Blood Travels Down Veins, What I'm Seeing Is My Inner Self And What Seems Threatening Is Just The Echo Of The Fear In My Heart.

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

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

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

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.

She Lived Frugally, But Her Meals Were The Only Things On Which She Deliberately Spent Her Money. She Never Compromised On The Quality Of Her Groceries, And Drank Only Good-quality Wines.

You Know What I Should Do?" Hoshino Asked Excited. "of Course," The Cat Said. "what'd I Tell You? Cats Know Everything. Not Like Dogs.

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

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

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.

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.

By Then Running Had Entered The Realm Of The Metaphysical. First There Came The Action Of Running, And Accompanying It There Was This Entity Known As Me. I Run; Therefore I Am.

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

Beyond The Edge Of The World There’s A Space Where Emptiness And Substance Neatly Overlap, Where Past And Future Form A Continuous, Endless Loop. And, Hovering About, There Are Signs No One Has Ever Read, Chords No One Has Ever Heard.

I Don't Care What You Do To Me, But I Don't Want You To Hurt Me. I've Had Enough Hurt Already In My Life. More Than Enough. Now I Want To Be Happy.

It's A Quiet Place, So People Talk Quietly," Said Naoko. She Made A Neat Pile Of Fish Bones At The Edge Of Her Plate And Dabbed At Her Mouth With A Handkerchief. "there's No Need To Raise Your Voice Here. You Don't Have To Convince Anybody Of Anything, And You Don't Have To Attract Anyone's Attention.

When You Fall In Love, The Natural Thing To Do Is Give Yourself To It.

Falling In Love

Falling For You

Whenever An Occasion Arose In Which She Needed An Opinion On Something In The Wider World, She Borrowed Her Husband's. If This Had Been All There Was To Her, She Wouldn't Have Bothered Anyone, But As Is So Often The Case With Such Women, She Suffered From An Incurable Case Of Of Pretentiousness. Lacking Any Internalized Values Of Her Own, Such People Can Arrive At A Standpoint Only By Adopting Other People's Standards Or Views. The Only Principle That Governs Their Minds Is The Question "how Do I Look?

Overhead, The Two Moons Worked Together To Bathe The World In A Strange Light.

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

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

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.

If Only I Could Fall Sound Asleep And Wake Up In My Old Reality!

Things May Look Different To You Than They Did Before. I've Had That Experience Myself. But Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Only One Reality.

When 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?

If You Really Want To Know What's Happening Here And Now, You've Got To Use Your Own Eyes And Your Own Judgment.

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.

Everything In Life Is A Metaphor.

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.

What I Feel For Her Is A Wholly Different Emotion. It Stands And Walks On Its Own, Living And Breathing And Throbbing And Shaking Me To The Roots Of My Being.

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

Like You're Riding A Train At Night Across Some Vast Plain, And You Catch A Glimpse Of A Tiny Light In A Window Of A Farmhouse. In An Instant It's Sucked Back Into The Darkness Behind And Vanishes. But If You Close Your Eyes, That Point Of Light Stays With You, Just Barely For A Few Moments.

When I Start To Write, I Don't Have Any Plan At All. I Just Wait For The Story To Come.

There Are Many Things We Only See Clearly In Retrospect.

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

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

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

Loneliness Becomes An Acid That Eats Away At You.

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

I've Always Liked Libraries. They're Quiet And Full Of Books And Full Of Knowledge.

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

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.

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

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 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 Believe You," She Whispers After A Moment. "please Find My Mind."

You Know What Girls Are Like. They Turn Twenty Or Twenty-one And All Of A Sudden They Start Having These Concrete Ideas. They Get Super Realistic. And When That Happens, Everything That Seemed So Sweet And Lovable About Them Begins To Look Ordinary And Depressing.

Stories Lie Deep In Our Souls. Stories Lie So Deep At The Bottom Of Our Hearts That They Can Bring People Together On The Deepest Level. When I Write A Novel, I Go Into Such Depths.

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

I May Be The Type Who Manages To Grab All The Pointless Things In Life But Lets The Really Important Things Slip Away.

Let Me Just Tell You This, Watanabe," Said Midori, Pressing Her Cheek Against My Neck. "i'm A Real, Live Girl, With Real, Live Blood Gushing Through My Veins. You're Holding Me In Your Arms And I'm Telling You That I Love You. I'm Ready To Do Anything You Tell Me To Do. I May Be A Little Bit Mad, But I'm A Good Girl, And Honest, And I Work Hard, I'm Kind Of Cute, I Have Nice Boobs, I'm A Good Cook, And My Father Left Me A Trust Fund. I Mean, I'm A Real Bargain, Don't You Think? If You Don't Take Me, I'll End Up Going Somewhere Else.

To Be Able To Talk To Your Heart’s Content About A Book You Like With Someone Who Feels The Same Way About It Is One Of The Greatest Joys That Life Can Offer.

So For All That We Might Speak Words In Each Other's Vicinity, This Could Never Develop Into Anything That Could Be Called A Conversation. It Was As Though We Were Speaking In Different Languages. If The Dalai Lama Were On His Deathbed And The Jazz Musician Eric Dolphy Were To Try To Explain To Him The Importance Of Choosing One's Engine Oil In Accordance With Changes In The Sound Of The Bass Clarinet, That Exchange Might Have Been More Worthwhile And Effective Than My Conversations With Noboru Wataya.

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.

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 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.

For A Long Time, She Held A Special Place In My Heart. I Kept This Special Place Just For Her, Like A "reserved" Sign On A Quiet Corner Table In A Restaurant. Despite The Fact That I Was Sure I'd Never See Her Again.

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.

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

You Couldn’t Begin To Imagine Who I Am, Where I’m Going, Or What I’m About To Do, All Of You Are Trapped Here. You Can’t Go Anywhere, Forward Or Back. But I’m Not Like You. I Have Work To Do. I Have A Mission To Accomplish. And So, With Your Permission, I Shall Move Ahead.

Will You Wait For Me Forever?

"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."

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.

Things Pass Us By. Nobody Can Catch Them. That's The Way We Live Our Lives.

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

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

I Don't Go Out Of My Way To Make Friends, That's All.

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

I Collect Records. And Cats. I Don't Have Any Cats Right Now. But If I'm Taking A Walk And I See A Cat, I'm Happy.

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.

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

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.

Between The Time The Last Train Leaves And The First Train Arrives, The Place Changes: It's Not The Same As In Daytime.

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

But Metaphors Help Eliminate What Separates You And Me.

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.

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?

I'm Often Asked What I Think About As I Run. Usually The People Who Ask This Have Never Run Long Distances Themselves. I Always Ponder The Question. What Exactly Do I Think About When I'm Running? I Don't Have A Clue.

Like Most Novelists, I Like To Do Exactly The Opposite Of What I'm Told. It's In My Nature As A Novelist. Novelists Can't Trust Anything They Haven't Seen With Their Own Eyes Or Touched With Their Own Hands.

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