Background Image

...

There Wasn't A Cloud In The Sky, No Wind, And Everything Was Quiet Around Us - All We Could Hear Were Birds Chirping In The Woods. The War Seemed Like Something In A Faraway Land That Had Nothing To Do With Us. We Sang Songs As We Hiked Up The Hill, Sometimes Imitating The Birds We Heard. Except For The Fact That The War Was Still Going On, It Was A Perfect Morning.

-Haruki Murakami

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

There Wasn't A Cloud

Haruki Murakami

...

There Wasn't A Cloud In The Sky, No Wind, And Everything Was Quiet Around Us - All We Could Hear Were Birds Chirping In The Woods. The War Seemed Like Something In A Faraway Land That Had Nothing To Do With Us. We Sang Songs As We Hiked Up The Hill, Sometimes Imitating The Birds We Heard. Except For The Fact That The War Was Still Going On, It Was A Perfect Morning.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Haruki Murakami

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.

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

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.

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.

I Am Nothing. I’m Like Someone Who’s Been Thrown Into The Ocean At Night, Floating All Alone. I Reach Out, But No One Is There. I Call Out, But No One Answers. I Have No Connection To Anything.

Pointless Thinking Is Worse Than No Thinking At All.

She Curled Up And Pressed Her Cheek Against His Chest. Her Ear Was Right Above His Heart. She Was Listening To His Thoughts. "i Need To Know This," Aomame Said. "that We're In The Same World, Seeing The Same Things.

But Even So, Every Now And Then I Would Feel A Violent Stab Of Loneliness. The Very Water I Drink, The Very Air I Breathe, Would Feel Like Long, Sharp Needles. The Pages Of A Book In My Hands Would Take On The Threatening Metallic Gleam Of Razor Blades. I Could Hear The Roots Of Loneliness Creeping Through Me When The World Was Hushed At Four O'clock In The Morning.

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?

If You Only Read The Books That Everyone Else Is Reading, You Can Only Think What Everyone Else Is Thinking.

Some Things In Life Are Too Complicated To Explain In Any Language.

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.

I Stare At Her Chest. As She Breathes, The Rounded Peaks Move Up And Down Like The Swell Of Waves, Somehow Reminding Me Of Rain Falling Softly On A Broad Stretch Of Sea. I'm The Lonely Voyager Standing On Deck, And She's The Sea. The Sky Is A Blanket Of Gray, Merging With The Gray Sea Off On The Horizon. It's Hard To Tell The Difference Between Sea And Sky. Between Voyager And Sea. Between Reality And The Workings Of The Heart.

I Can Never Say What I Want To Say, It's Been Like This For A While Now. I Try To Say Something But All I Get Are Wrong Words - The Wrong Words Or The Exact Opposite Words From What I Mean. I Try To Correct Myself, And That Only Makes It Worse. I Lose Track Of What I Was Trying To Say To Begin With. It's Like I'm Split In Two And Playing Tag With Myself. One Half Is Chasing This Big, Fat Post. The Other Me Has The Right Words, But This Can't Catch Her.

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

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.

I Want To Write Stories That Are Different From The Ones I've Written So Far, Junpei Thought: 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. But Right Now I Have To Stay Here And Keep Watch Over This Woman And This Girl. I Will Never Let Anyone-not Anyone-try To Put Them Into That Crazy Box- Not Even If The Sky Should Fall Or The Earth Crack Open With A Roar.

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.

People Leave Strange Little Memories Of Themselves Behind When They Die.

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

Passage Of Time

Spending Plenty Of Time On Something Can Be The Most Sophisticated Form Of Revenge.

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

A Girl Doesn't Always Want To Go Out, You Know, Mr. Wind-up Bird. Sometimes She Feels Like Being Nasty--like, If The Guy's Gonna Wait, Let Him Really Wait.

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

For A Certain Kind Of Person, Love Begins From Something Tiny Or Silly. From Something Like That Or It Doesnt Begin At All.

The Better You Were Able To Imagine What You Wanted To Imagine, The Farther You Could Flee From Reality.

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

In Order To Pin Down Reality As Realilty, We Need Another Reality To Relativize The First. Yet That Other Reality Requires A Third Reality To Serve As Its Grounding. An Endless Chain Is Created Within Our Consciousness, And It Is The Maintenance Of This Chain Which Produces The Sensation That We Are Actually Here, That We Ourselves Exist.

Exerting Yourself To The Fullest Within Your Individual Limits: That's The Essence Of Running, And A Metaphor For Life

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.

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.

Have Your Dream...what You Need Now More Than Anything Is Discipline. Cast Off Mere Words. Words Turn Into Stone. (from Thailand)

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.

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.

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

In Real Life Things Don’t Go So Smoothly. At Certain Points In Our Lives, When We Really Need A Clear-cut Solution, The Person Who Knocks At Our Door Is, More Likely Than Not, A Messenger Bearing Bad News.

No Truth Can Cure The Sorrow We Feel From Losing A Loved One. No Truth, No Sincerity, No Strength, No Kindness Can Cure That Sorrow. All We Can Do Is See It Through To The End And Learn Something From It, But What We Learn Will Be No Help In Facing The Next Sorrow That Comes To Us Without Warning.

Losing A Loved One

The Most Important Thing We Learn At School Is The Fact That The Most Important Things Can't Be Learned At School.

The World In Books Seemed So Much More Alive To Me Than Anything Outside. I Could See Things I'd Never Seen Before. Books And Music Were My Best Friends. I Had A Couple Of Good Friends At School, But Never Met Anyone I Could Really Speak My Heart To.

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.

In Long-distance Running The Only Opponent You Have To Beat Is Yourself, The Way You Used To Be.

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.

If You Can Love Someone With Your Whole Heart, Even One Person, Then There's Salvation In Life. Even If You Can't Get Together With That Person.

Holding This Soft, Small Living Creature In My Lap This Way, Though, And Seeing How It Slept With Complete Trust In Me, I Felt A Warm Rush In My Chest. I Put My Hand On The Cat's Chest And Felt His Heart Beating. The Pulse Was Faint And Fast, But His Heart, Like Mine, Was Ticking Off The Time Allotted To His Small Body With All The Restless Earnestness Of My Own.

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.

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

Be Fearless, Be Brave, Be Bold, Love Yourself

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

Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?

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

Myths Are The Prototype For All Stories. When We Write A Story On Our Own It Can't Help But Link Up With All Sorts Of Myths. Myths Are Like A Reservoir Containing Every Story There Is.

If, As The Dowager Had Said, We Are Nothing But Gene Carriers, Why Do So Many Of Us Have To Lead Such Strangely Shaped Lives? Wouldn't Our Genetic Purpose-to Transmit Dna-be Served Just As Well If We Lived Simple Lives, Not Bothering Our Heads With A Lot Of Extraneous Thoughts, Devoted Entirely To Preserving Life And Procreating? Did It Benefit The Genes In Any Way For Us To Lead Such Intricately Warped, Even Bizarre, Lives?

People Need Routines. It's Like A Theme In Music. But It Also Restrictsyour Thoughts And Actions And Limits Your Freedom. It Structures Your Priorities And In Some Cases Distorts Your Logic.

"i Guess I've Been Waiting So Long I'm Looking For Perfection. That Makes It Tough." "waiting For Perfect Love?" "no, Even I Know Better Than That. I'm Looking For Selfishness. Like, Say I Tell You I Want To Eat Strawberry Shortcake. And You Stop Everything You're Doing And Run Out And Buy It For Me. And You Come Back Out Of Breath And Get Down On Your Knees And Hold This Strawberry Shortcake Out To Me. And I Say I Don't Want It Anymore And Throw It Out The Window. That's What I'm Looking For."

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

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.

According To Chekhov," Tamaru Said, Rising From His Chair, "once A Gun Appears In A Story, It Has To Be Fired." "meaning What?" "meaning, Don't Bring Unnecessary Props Into A Story. If A Pistol Appears, It Has To Be Fired At Some Point. Chekhov Liked To Write Stories That Did Away With All Useless Ornamentation.

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.

Listen To This, Nimit. Follow Coleman Hawkins' Improvised Lines Very Carefully. He Is Using Them To Tell Us Something. Pay Very Close Attention. He Is Telling Us The Story Of The Free Spirit That Is Doing Everything It Can To Escape From Within Him. That Same Kind Of Spirit Is Inside Me, Inside You. There-you Can Hear It, I'm Sure: The Hot Breath, The Shivering Heart. (thailand)

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.

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.

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

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

...i've Just Been Feeling Insecure Since I Was 20, And That's All I've Been Trying To Express. Now The Entire World Is Feeling Insecure.

My Biggest Fault Is That The Faults I Was Born With Grow Bigger Each Year.

What's Really Important Here," I Whispered Loudly To Myself,"is Not The Big Things Other People Have Thought Up, But The Small Things You, Yourself Have

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 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.

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

Taking Crazy Things Seriously Is A Serious Waste Of Time.

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

Wherever There's Hope There's A Trial.

You're Not A Kid Any More. You Have The Right To Choose Your Own Life. You Can Start Again. If You Want A Cat, All You Have To Do Is Choose A Life In Which You Can Have A Cat. It's Simple. It's Your Right.

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

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

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.

Certain Kinds Of Knowledge Rob People Of Their Sleep.

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

The World Is An Inherently Unfair Place.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Light Of Morning Decomposes Everything.

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

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.

Far Away, I Could Hear Them Lapping Up My Brains. Like Macbeth's Witches, The Three Lithe Cats Surrounded My Broken Head, Slurping Up That Thick Soup Inside. The Tips Of Their Rough Tongues Licked The Soft Folds Of My Mind. And With Each Lick My Consciousness Flickered Like A Flame And Faded Away.

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

My Father Belongs To The Generation That Fought The War In The 1940s. When I Was A Kid My Father Told Me Stories - Not So Many, But It Meant A Lot To Me. I Wanted To Know What Happened Then, To My Father's Generation. It's A Kind Of Inheritance, The Memory Of It.

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

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

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.

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

Even If We Could Turn Back, We'd Probably Never End Up Where We Started.

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.

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

I'm Not Sure If I Could Tell The Difference—between Just Staring Into Space And Thinking. We're Usually Thinking All The Time, Aren't We? Not That We Live In Order To Think, But The Opposite Isn't True Either—that We Think In Order To Live. I Believe, Contrary To Descartes, That We Sometimes Think In Order Not To Be. Staring Into Space Might Unintentionally Have The Opposite Effect.

Such Wounds To The Heart Will Probably Never Heal. But We Cannot Simply Sit And Stare At Our Wounds Forever.

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.

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.

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

I Like To Read Books. I Like To Listen To Music.

Listening To Music

That's Wrong," She Declared. "everyone Must Have One Thing That They Can Excel At. It's Just A Matter Of Drawing It Out, Isn't It? But School Doesn't Know How To Draw It Out. It Crushes The Gift. It's No Wonder Most People Never Get To Be What They Want To Be. They Just Get Ground Down.

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

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

Thanks To The Long Days Of Rain, The Blades Of Grass Glowed With A Deep-green Luster, And They Gave Off The Smell Of Wildness Unique To Things That Sink Their Roots Into The Earth.

Most People Are Not Looking For Provable Truths. As You Said, Truth Is Often Accompanied By Intense Pain, And Almost No One Is Looking For Painful Truths. What People Need Is Beautiful, Comforting Stories That Make Them Feel As If Their Lives Have Some Meaning. Which Is Where Religion Comes From.

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.

The Thing I’m Most Afraid Of Is Me. Of Not Knowing What I’m Going To Do. Of Not Knowing What I’m Doing Right Now

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

Does G Get Angry Because It Follows F In The Alphabet? Does Page 68 In A Book Start A Revolution Because It Follows 67?

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

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

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

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.

There's A Special Feeling You Get On A Veranda That You Just Can't Get Anywhere Else.

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

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.

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.

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.

Understanding Is But The Sum Of Misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding

What If I’ve Forgotten The Most Important Thing? What If Somewhere Inside Me There Is A Dark Limbo Where All The Truly Important Memories Are Heaped And Slowly Turning Into Mud?...the Thought Fills Me With An Almost Unbearable Sorrow.

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.

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

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

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

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

Once Upon A Time

You're Walking Through A Field All By Yourself One Day In Spring And This Sweet Little Bear Cub With Velvet Fur And Shiny Little Eyes Comes Walking Along. And He Says To You, 'hi, There, Little Lady. Want To Tumble With Me?' So You And The Bear Spend The Whole Day In Each Other's Arms, Tumbling Down This Clover-covered Hill. Nice, Huh?

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 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 Get Irritated, I Get Upset. Especially When I'm In A Hurry. But I See It All As Part Of Our Training. To Get Irritated Is To Lose Our Way In Life.

Death Leaves Cans Of Shaving Cream Half-used.

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.

It's A Dark, Cool, Quiet Place. A Basement In Your Soul. And That Place Can Sometimes Be Dangerous To The Human Mind. I Can Open The Door And Enter That Darkness, But I Have To Be Very Careful. I Can Find My Story There. Then I Bring That Thing To The Surface, Into The Real World.

Nothing So Consumes A Person As Meaningless Exertion

I Didn't Have Much To Say To Anybody But Kept To Myself And My Books. With My Eyes Closed, I Would Touch A Familiar Book And Draw It's Fragrance Deep Inside Me. This Was Enough To Make Me Happy.

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

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

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.

I'm Going To Take You Out Of Here ... I'm Going To Take You Home, To The World Where You Belong, Where Cats With Bent Tails Live, And There Are Little Backyards, And Alarm Clocks Ring In The Morning.

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

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.

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

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

I Have Always Liked Running, So It Wasn't Particularly Difficult To Make It A Habit. All You Need Is A Pair Of Running Shoes And You Can Do It Anywhere. It Does Not Require Anybody To Do It With, And So I Found The Sport Perfectly Fits Me As A Person Who Tends To Be Independent And Individualistic.

Most Runners Run Not Because They Want To Live Longer, But Because They Want To Live Life To The Fullest.

You're Wrong. The Mind Is Not Like Raindrops. It Does Not Fall From The Skies, It Does Not Lose Itself Among Other Things. If You Believe In Me At All, Then Believe This: I Promise You I Will Find It. Everything Depends On This." "i Believe You," She Whispers After A Moment. "please Find My Mind.

Better To Be A First-class Matchbox Than A Second-class Match.

I've Never Met A Girl Who Thinks Like You." "a Lot Of People Tell Me That," She Said, Digging At A Cuticle. "but It's The Only Way I Know How To Think. Seriously. I'm Just Telling You What I Believe. It's Never Crossed My Mind That My Way Of Thinking Is Different From Other People's. I'm Not Trying To Be Different. But When I Speak Out Honestly, Everybody Thinks I'm Kidding Or Playacting. When That Happens, I Feel Like Everything Is Such A Pain!

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

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.

Time Expands, Then Contracts, All In Tune With The Stirrings Of The Heart.

Waiting For Your Answer Is One Of The Most Painful Things I Have Ever Been Through. At Least Let Me Know Whether Or Not I Hurt You.

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.

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)

And It Came To Me Then. That We Were Wonderful Traveling Companions But In The End No More Than Lonely Lumps Of Metal In Their Own Separate Orbits. From Far Off They Look Like Beautiful Shooting Stars, But In Reality They're Nothing More Than Prisons, Where Each Of Us Is Locked Up Alone, Going Nowhere. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Do You Know What ‘sputnik’ Means In Russian? ‘travelling Companion’. I Looked It Up In A Dictionary Not Long Ago. Kind Of A Strange Coincidence If You Think About It. I Wonder Why The Russians Gave Their Satellite That Strange Name. It’s Just A Poor Little Lump Of Metal, Spinning Around The Earth.

Spinning Around

Loneliness Becomes An Acid That Eats Away At You.

Someone Once Said That Nothing Costs More And Yields Less Benefit Than Revenge,” Aomame Said. “winston Churchill. As I Recall It, Though, He Was Making Excuses For The British Empire’s Budget Deficits. It Has No Moral Significance.

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.

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

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.

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

Generally, People Who Are Good At Writing Letters Have No Need To Write Letters. They've Got Plenty Of Life To Lead Inside Their Own Context.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

What Matters Is Deciding In Your Heart To Accept Another Person Completely. When You Do That, It Is Always The First Time And The Last.

Some People Can Work Their Butts Off And Never Get What They're Aiming For While Others Can Get It Without Any Effort At All.

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

Time Really Is One Big Continuous Cloth, No? We Habitually Cut Out Pieces Of Time To Fit Us, So We Tend To Fool Ourselves Into Thinking That Time Is Our Size, But It Really Goes On And On.

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.

I Realize Full Well How Hard It Must Be To Go On Living Alone In A Place From Which Someone Has Left You, But There Is Nothing So Cruel In This World As The Desolation Of Having Nothing To Hope For.

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.

My Short Stories Are Like Soft Shadows I Have Set Out In The World, Faint Footprints I Have Left. I Remember Exactly Where I Set Down Each And Every One Of Them, And How I Felt When I Did. Short Stories Are Like Guideposts To My Heart.

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.

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.

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

I Want To Believe You, But If That's True, I Just Don't Get It. Why Does Loving Somebody Mean You Have To Hurt Them Just As Much? I Mean, If That's The Way It Goes, What's The Point Of Loving Someone?

Painful Is The Stress When One Cannot Reproduce Or Convey Vividly To Others, However Hard He Tries, What He's Experienced So Intensely.

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

The Sad Truth Is That Certain Types Of Things Can't Go Backward. Once They Start Going Forward, No Matter What You Do, They Can't Go Back The Way They Were. If Even One Little Thing Goes Awry, Then That's How It Will Stay Forever.

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

I Feel Like I've Swallowed A Cloudy Sky

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

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

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

And So They Parted, She To The East, And He To The West. The Test They Had Agreed Upon, However, Was Utterly Unnecessary. They Should Never Have Undertaken It, Because They Really And Truly Were Each Other's 100% Perfect Lovers, And It Was A Miracle That They Had Ever Met. But It Was Impossible For Them To Know This, Young As They Were. The Cold, Indifferent Waves Of Fate Proceeded To Toss Them Unmercifully.

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

Where I Went In My Travels, It's Impossible For Me To Recall. I Remember The Sights And Sounds And Smells Clearly Enough, But The Names Of The Towns Are Gone, As Well As Any Sense Of The Order In Which I Traveled From Place To Place.

It’s Precisely Because Of The Pain, The We Can Get The Feeling, Through This Process, Of Really Being Alive—or At Least A Partial Sense Of It.

It's A Question Of Attitude. If You Really Work At Something You Can Do It Up To A Point. If You Really Work At Being Happy You Can Do It Up To A Point. But Anything More Than That You Can't. Anything More Than That Is Luck.

Trending Author

Grover Cleveland

Michelle Bachelet

Category