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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.

-Haruki Murakami

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There's Not Much You

Haruki Murakami

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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.

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Not Just Beautiful, Though--the Stars Are Like The Trees In The Forest, Alive And Breathing. And They're Watching Me.

She Was Beautiful And Seemingly Quite Intelligent, What With Her Pentameter Search System. There Wasn't A Reason In The World Not To Find Her Appealing.

Whatever Can't Be Expressed Might As Well Not Exist.

As Long As An Individual's Alive, He Will Undergo Experience In Some Form Or Other, And Those Experiences Are Stored Up Instant By Instant. To Stop Experiencin' Is To Die.

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

I Was Enjoying Myself Writing, Because I Don't Know What's Going To Happen When I Take A Ride Around That Corner. You Don't Know At All What You're Going To Find There. That Can Be Thrilling When You Read A Book, Especially When You're A Kid And You're Reading Stories.

Fate Seems To Be Taking Me In Some Even Stranger Directions.

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.

How About Proust's In Search Of Lost Time?" Tamaru Asked. "if You've Never Read It This Would Be A Good Opportunity To Read The Whole Thing." "have You Read It?" "no, I Haven't Been In Jail, Or Had To Hide Out For A Long Time. Someone Once Said Unless You Have Those Kinds Of Opportunities, You Can't Read The Whole Of Proust.

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.

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.

It Was A Small Room With Dim Light Coming In The Window, Reminiscent Of Old Polish Films.

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.

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

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.

It's Just Like Yeats Said. In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. Flip This Around And You Could Say That Where There's No Power To Imagine, No Responsibility Can Arise.

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

What Do We Talk About? Just Ordinary Things. What Happened Today, Or Books We've Read, Or Tomorrow's Weather, You Know. Don't Tell Me You're Wondering If People Jump To Their Feet And Shout Stuff Like 'it'll Rain Tomorrow If A Polar Bear Eats The Stars Tonight!

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

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

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

Narrow Minds Devoid Of Imagination. Intolerance, Theories Cut Off From Reality, Empty Terminology, Usurped Ideals, Inflexible Systems. Those Are The Things That Really Frighten Me. What I Absolutely Fear And Loathe.

Someone Who Can Search For Something Is Happy. Searching Gives A Meaning To Life. Nowadays It’s Not So Easy To Find Something You Might Be Looking For. The Most Important Thing, However, Is The Search Itself, The Way You Take. It’s Not So Important Where It Leads. That’s Why My Characters Are Always Looking For Something, Maybe Only A Cat, A Sheep Or A Wife, But That Is At Least The Beginning Of A Story.

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.

If Writing Novels Is Like Planting A Forest, Then Writing Short Stories Is More Like Planting A Garden. The Two Processes Complement Each Other, Creating A Complete Landscape That I Treasure. The Green Foliage Of The Trees Casts A Pleasant Shade Over The Earth, And The Wind Rustles The Leaves, Which Are Sometimes Dyed A Brilliant Gold. Meanwhile, In The Garden, Buds Appear On The Flowers, And Colorful Petals Attract Bees And Butterflies, Reminding Us Of The Subtle Transition From One Season To The Next.

I Could Disappear From The Face Of The Earth, And The World Would Go On Moving Without The Slightest Twinge. Things Were Tremendously Complicated, To Be Sure, But One Thing Was Clear: No One Needed Me.

No Matter What The Situation May Be, I Still Take Pleasure In Witnessing The Joy Of Others.

An Unhealthy Soul Requires A Healthy Body.

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.

One Last Word Of Advice, Though, Mr. Okada, Though You May Not Want To Hear This. There Are Things In This World It Is Better Not To Know About. Of Course, Those Are The Very Things That People Most Want To Know About. It's Strange.

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.

Each Individual Has Their Own Unique Color, Which Shines Faintly Around The Contours Of Their Body. Like A Halo. Or A Backlight. I'm Able To See Those Colors Clearly.

Love Can Rebuild The World, They Say, So Everything's Possible When It Comes To Love.

Your Work Should Be An Act Of Love, Not A Marriage Of Convenience.

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

Pain Is Inevitable. Suffering Is Optional.

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

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

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.

I'm An Average Person. Is Just That I Like Reading.

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

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.

In Certain Areas Of My Life, I Actively Seek Out Solitude. Especially For Someone In My Line Of Work, Solitude Is, More Or Less, An Inevitable Circumstance. Sometimes, However, This Sense Of Isolation, Like Acid Spilling Out Of A Bottle, Can Unconsciously Eat Away At A Person's Heart And Dissolve It. You Could See It, Too, As A Kind Of Double-edged Sword. It Protects Me, But At The Same Time Steadily Cuts Away At Me From The Inside.

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

Passion Can’t Sustain Itself Forever.

Sometimes I Wonder Why I'm A Novelist Right Now. There Is No Definite Career Reason Why I Became A Writer. Something Happened, And I Became A Writer. And Now I'm A Successful Writer.

Perhaps Most People In The World Aren’t Trying To Be Free, Kafka. They Just Think They Are. It’s All An Illusion. If They Really Were Set Free, Most People Would Be In A Real Pickle. You’d Better Remember That. People Actually Prefer Not Being Free?

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

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.

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

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

Imperfect World

If I Choose To Write About Sheep, It's Just Because I Happened To Write About Sheep. There Is No Deep Significance.

Wherever There's Hope There's A Trial.

And As We Live Our Lives We Discover - Drawing Toward Us The Thin Threads Attached To Each - What Has Been Lost. I Closed My Eyes And Tried To Bring To Mind As Many Beautiful Lost Things As I Could. Drawing Them Closer, Holding On To Them.

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

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.

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.

Life Is Like A Box Of Cookies.

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

I've Been Running A Full Marathon Every Year For More Than 20 Years, And My Record Is Getting Worse. Getting Older, Getting Worse. It's Natural.

You Have To Be Practical. So Every Time I Say, If You Want To Write A Novel You Have To Be Practical, People Get Bored. They Are Disappointed. They Are Expecting A More Dynamic, Creative, Artistic Thing To Say. What I Want To Say Is: You Have To Be Practical.

There Are Ways Of Dying That Don't End In Funerals. Types Of Death You Can't Smell.

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

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

I Think Most People Live In Fiction...that's How You Keep Your Fragile Body Intact.

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.

Sometimes I Think I've Got This Hard Kernel In My Heart, And Nothing Much Can Get Inside It. I Doubt If I Can Really Love Anybody.

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

Life Is So Uncertain: You Never Know What Could Happen. One Way To Deal With That Is To Keep Your Pajamas Washed.

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

I Don’t Know, I Don’t Feel Right Unless I’ve Got The Sea And Mountains Nearby. People Are Mostly A Product Of Where They Were Born And Raised. How You Think And Feel’s Always Linked To The Lay Of The Land, The Temperature. The Prevailing Winds, Even.

George Orwell Is Half Journalist, Half Fiction Writer. I'm 100 Percent Fiction Writer... I Don't Want To Write Messages. I Want To Write Good Stories. I Think Of Myself As A Political Person, But I Don't State My Political Messages To Anybody.

Confidence; As A Teenager? Because I Knew What I Loved. I Loved To Read; I Loved To Listen To Music; And I Love Cats. Those Three Things. So, Even Though I Was An Only Kid, I Could Be Happy Because I Knew What I Loved.

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

Something Inside Me Had Dropped Away, And Nothing Came In To Fill The Cavern.

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.

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

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.

Loneliness Becomes An Acid That Eats Away At You.

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.

When You Are Used To The Kind Of Life -of Never Getting Anything You Want- You Stop Knowing What It Is You Want.

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

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.

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

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

Reaching The Finish Line, Never Walking, And Enjoying The Race. These Three, In This Order, Are My Goals.

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

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

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.

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.

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

A Certain Kind Of Shittiness, A Certain Kind Of Stagnation, A Certain Kind Of Darkness, Goes On Propagating Itself By Its Own Power In Its Own Self-contained Cycle. And Once It Passes A Certain Point, No One Can Stop It-even If The Person Himself Wants To Stop It.

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.

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.

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.

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

A Life Without Pain: It Was The Very Thing I Had Dreamed Of For Years, But Now That I Had It, I Couldn’t Find A Place For Myself Within It. A Clear Gap Separated Me From It, And This Caused Me Great Confusion. I Felt As If I Were Not Anchored To This World - This World That I Had Hated So Passionately Until Then; This World That I Had Continued To Revile For Its Unfairness And Injustice; This World Where At Least I Knew Who I Was. Now The World Ceased To Be The World, And I Had Ceased To Be Me.

Even If You Don't Acknowledge It, People Die, And Guys Sleep With Girls. That's Just How It Is.

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.

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.

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

Now For A Good Twelve-hour Sleep, I Told Myself. Twelve Solid Hours. Let Birds Sing, Let People Go To Work. Somewhere Out There, A Volcano Might Blow, Israeli Commandos Might Decimate A Palestinian Village. I Couldn't Stop It. I Was Going To Sleep.

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.

Like Flowers Scattered In A Storm, A Man's Life Is A Long Farewell.

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

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

When I Am Writing, I Do Not Distinguish Between The Natural And Supernatural. Everything Seems Real. That Is My World, You Could Say.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

She Was Seriously In Love, But She Never Made Demands.

Everyone Just Keeps On Disappearing. Some Things Vanish, Like They Were Cut Away. Others Fade Slowly Into The Mist. And All That Remains Is A Desert.

Ice Contains No Future , Just The Past, Sealed Away. As If They're Alive, Everything In The World Is Sealed Up Inside, Clear And Distinct. Ice Can Preserve All Kinds Of Things That Way- Cleanly, Clearly. That's The Essence Of Ice, The Role It Plays.

Crying Is Personal. On The Other Hand, Laughing Is More General . Laughing Makes Our Hearts Wider.

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

Oshima's Silent For A Time As He Gazes At The Forest, Eyes Narrowed. Birds Are Flitting From One Branch To The Next. His Hands Are Clasped Behind His Head. "i Know How You Feel," He Finally Says. "but This Is Something You Have To Work Out On Your Own. Nobody Can Help You. That's What Love's All About, Kafka. You're The One Having Those Wonderful Feelings, But You Have To Go It Alone As You Wander Through The Dark. Your Mind And Body Have To Bear It All. All By Yourself.

A Story Is Not Something Of This World. A Real Story Requires A Kind Of Magical Baptism To Link The World On This Side With The World On The Other Side.

Is It Possible To Become Friends With A Butterfly?

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

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

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

Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?

Things Outside You Are Projections Of What's Inside You, And What's Inside You Is A Projection Of What's Outside. So When You Step Into The Labyrinth Outside You, At The Same Time You're Stepping Into The Labyrinth Inside.

What Makes Us The Most Normal," Said Reiko, "is Knowing That We're Not Normal.

Every One Of Us Is Losing Something Precious To Us. Lost Opportunities, Lost Possibilities, Feelings We Can Never Get Back Again. That’s Part Of What It Means To Be Alive.

Potentiality Knocks On The Door Of My Heart. [on Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning ]

Well, Finally, The Events I've Been Through Have Been Tremendously Complicated. All Kinds Of Characters Have Come On The Scene, And Strange Things Have Happened One After Another, To The Point Where, If I Try To Think About Them In Order, I Lose Track.

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?

The Light Of Morning Decomposes Everything.

Many Are The Women Who Can Take Their Clothes Off Seductively, But Women Who Can Charm As They Dress?

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

Passing Moments

Lots Of Different Ways To Live And Lots Of Different Ways To Die. But In The End That Doesn't Make A Bit Of Difference. All That Remains Is A Desert.

No Matter How Long You Stand There Examining Yourself Naked Before A Mirror, You'll Never See Reflected What's Inside.

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

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.

Memory Is Like Fiction; Or Else It's Fiction That's Like Memory.

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

I'm All Alone, But I'm Not Lonely.

I Probably Still Haven’t Completely Adapted To The World. 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.

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.

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

Suicides? Heart Attacks? The Papers Didn't Seem Interested. The World Was Full Of Ways To Die, Too Many To Cover. Newsworthy Deaths Had To Be Exceptional. Most People Go Unobserved.

The Body Is Not The Only Target Of Rape. Violence Does Not Always Take A Visible Form, And Not All Wounds Gush Blood.

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.

If You Really Want To Know Something, You Have To Be Willing To Pay The Price.

I'm Not Afraid To Die. What I'm Afraid Of Is Having Reality Get The Better Of Me, Of Having Reality Leave Me Behind.

There Were Plenty Of Women Around Who Dressed Smartly, And Plenty More Who Dressed To Impress, But This Girl Was Different. Totally Different. She Wore Her Clothing With Such Utter Naturalness And Grace That She Could Have Been A Bird That Had Wrapped Itself In A Special Wind As It Made Ready To Fly Off To Another World. He Had Never Seen A Woman Who Wore Her Clothes With Such Apparent Joy. And The Clothes Themselves Looked As If, In Being Draped On Her Body, They Had Won New Life For Themselves.

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

No Matter How Clear Things Might Become In The Forest Of Story, There Was Never A Clear-cut Solution, As There Was In Math. The Role Of A Story Was, In The Broadest Terms, To Transpose A Problem Into Another Form. Depending On The Nature And The Direction Of The Problem, A Solution Might Be Suggested In The Narrative. Tengo Would Return To The Real World With That Solution In Hand. It Was Like A Piece Of Paper Bearing The Indecipherable Text Of A Magic Spell. It Served No Immediate Practical Purpose, But It Contained A Possibility.

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

In The End, Like So Many Beautiful Promises In Our Lives, That Dinner Date Never Came To Be.

I Guess I Felt Attached To My Weakness. My Pain And Suffering Too. Summer Light, The Smell Of A Breeze, The Sound Of Cicadas - If I Like These Things, Why Should I Apologize?

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

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.

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.

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

Forgive Me For Stating The Obvious, But The World Is Made Up Of All Kinds Of People.

All I Do Is Keep On Running In My Own Cozy, Homemade Void, My Own Nostalgic Silence. And This Is A Pretty Wonderful Thing. No Matter What Anybody Else Says.

I Want You Always To Remember Me. Will You Remember That I Existed, And That I Stood Next To You Here Like This?

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

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

A Regular Wind-up Toy World This Is, I Think. Once A Day The Wind-up Bird Has To Come And Wind The Springs Of This World. Alone In This Fun House, Only I Grow Old, A Pale Softball Of Death Swelling Inside Me. Yet Even As I Sleep Somewhere Between Saturn And Uranus, Wind-up Birds Everywhere Are Busy At Work Fulfilling Their Appointed Rounds.

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.

I Go Back To The Reading Room, Where I Sink Down In The Sofa And Into The World Of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, Like A Movie Fadeout, The Real World Evaporates. I'm Alone, Inside The World Of The Story. My Favourite Feeling In The World.

That's The Kind Of Death That Frightens Me. The Shadow Of Death Slowly, Slowly Eats Away At The Region Of Life, And Before You Know It Everything's Dark And You Can't See, And The People Around You Think Of You As More Dead Than Alive.

Shadow Of Death

I Myself, As I'm Writing, Don't Know Who Did It. The Readers And I Are On The Same Ground. When I Start To Write A Story, I Don't Know The Conclusion At All And I Don't Know What's Going To Happen Next. If There Is A Murder Case As The First Thing, I Don't Know Who The Killer Is. I Write The Book Because I Would Like To Find Out. If I Know Who The Killer Is, There's No Purpose To Writing The Story.

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

How Many Sundays - How Many Hundreds Of Sundays Like This - Lay Ahead Of Me? “quiet, Peaceful, And Lonely,” I Said Aloud To Myself. On Sundays, I Didn't Wind My Spring.

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

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.

In Dreams Begins Responsiblities.

I Think That My Job Is To Observe People And The World, And Not To Judge Them. I Always Hope To Position Myself Away From So-called Conclusions. I Would Like To Leave Everything Wide Open To All The Possibilities In The World.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

Nights Without Work I Spend With Whisky And Books.

In Traveling, A Companion, In Life, Compassion,'" She Repeats, Making Sure Of It. If She Had Paper And Pencil, It Wouldn't Surprise Me If She Wrote It Down. "so What Does That Really Mean? In Simple Terms." I Think It Over. It Takes Me A While To Gather My Thoughts, But She Waits Patiently. "i Think It Means," I Say, "that Chance Encounters Are What Keep Us Going. In Simple Terms.

No Matter How Much Time Passes, No Matter What Takes Place In The Interim, There Are Some Things We Can Never Assign To Oblivion, Memories We Can Never Rub Away.

In Japan They Prefer The Realistic Style. They Like Answers And Conclusions, But My Stories Have None. I Want To Leave Them Wide Open To Every Possibility. I Think My Readers Understand That Openness.

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

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.

It Might Not Be Perfect, But The Fundamental Stance I Adopted With Regard To My Home Was To Accept It, Problems And All, Because It Was Something I Myself Had Chosen. If It Had Problems, These Were Almost Certainly Problems That Had Originated Within Me.

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

Wasn't He The One Who Said You Shouldn't Trust Anybody Who Calls Himself An Ordinar Man? - Naoko

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

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

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.

I Could Have Been A Cult Writer If I'd Kept Writing Surrealistic Novels. But I Wanted To Break Into The Mainstream, So I Had To Prove That I Could Write A Realistic Book.

I'm Scared," She Said. "these Days I Feel Like A Snail Without A Shell." "i'm Scared Too," I Said. "i Feel Like A Frog Without Any Webs." She Looked Up And Smiled. Wordlessly We Walked Over To A Shaded Part Of The Building And Held Each Other And Kissed, A Shell-less Snail And A Webless Frog.

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

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

I Hurt Myself Deeply, Though At The Time I Had No Idea How Deeply. I Should Have Learned Many Things From That Experience, But When I Look Back On It, All I Gained Was One Single, Undeniable Fact. That Ultimately I Am A Person Who Can Do Evil. I Never Consciously Tried To Hurt Anyone, Yet Good Intentions Notwithstanding, When Necessity Demanded, I Could Become Completely Self-centred, Even Cruel. I Was The Kind Of Person Who Could, Using Some Plausible Excuse, Inflict On A Person I Cared For A Wound That Would Never Heal.

If You Can’t Understand It Without An Explanation, You Can’t Understand It With An Explanation.

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