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

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There Wasn't A Cloud

Haruki Murakami

Topic

Song

Morning

War

More From Haruki Murakami

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.

Cat

Records

Walks

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.

Thinking

Self

Somewhere Else

If There's Any Guy Crazy Enough To Attack Me, I'm Going To Show Him The End Of The World -- Close Up. I'm Going To Let Him See The Kingdom Come With His Own Eyes. I'm Going To Send Him Straight To The Southern Hemisphere And Let The Ashes Of Death Rain All Over Him And The Kangaroos And The Wallabies.

Badass

Crazy

Rain

Even Castles In The Sky Can Do With A Fresh Coat Of Paint.

Sky

Castles

Coats

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.

Opportunity

Jail

Long

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

Book

Listening To Music

It Was A Strange Feeling, Like Touching A Void.

Touching

Feelings

Void

The Silence Grew Deeper, So Deep That If You Listened Carefully You Might Very Well Catch The Sound Of The Earth Revolving On Its Axis.

Axes

Silence

Sound

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.

Running

Firsts

Action

I Learned That Realism Can Come In All Shapes And Sizes. The World Is Big Enough For Different Values To Coexist.

Different

World

Shapes

The Problem Was, I Think, That The Places I Fit In Were Always Falling Behind The Rimes.

Fall

Thinking

Problem

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.

Hurt

Ideas

Self

After All This, I Won't Start To Hate You.

Hate

Hate You

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

Running

Together

Grows

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.

Fun

Reflection

Mirrors

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.

Shells

Frogs

Scared

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

Moving

Numbness

Long

In Ancient Times, People Weren't Just Male Or Female, But One Of Three Types: Male/male, Male/female, Female/female. In Other Words, Each Person Was Made Out Of The Components Of Two People. Everyone Was Happy With This Arrangement And Never Really Gave It Much A Thought. But Then God Took A Knife And Cut Everybody In Half, Right Down The Middle. So After That The World Was Divided Just Into Male And Female, The Upshot Being That People Spend Their Time Running Around Trying To Locate Their Missing Other Half.

Running

Cutting

Knives

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

Feelings

Special

With Luck, It Might Even Snow For Us.

Snow

Luck

Might

Deep Rivers Run Quiet.

Running

Rivers

Quiet

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.

Jobs

Lying

Writing

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

Humorous

Thinking

Want

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

Country

Responsibility

Worry

Sometimes I Get Real Lonely Sleeping With You.

Lonely

Sex

Real

Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?

Law

Knows

What Do You Mean, 'playing Really Creatively'? Can You Give Me An Example?" "hmm, Let's See ... You Send The Music Deep Enough Into Your Heart So That It Makes Your Body Undergo A Kind Of A Physical Shift, And Simultaneously The Listener's Body Also Undergoes The Same Kind Of Physical Shift. It's Giving Birth To That Kind Of Shared State. Probably.

Heart

Mean

Giving

Running Taught Me To Have Faith In My Skills As A Writer. I Learned How Much I Can Demand Of Myself, When I Need A Break, And When The Break Starts To Get Too Long. I Known How Hard I Am Allowed To Push Myself.

Running

Skills

Long

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.

Ocean

Heart

Sadness

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. We'd Just Make Small Talk, Play Soccer Together. When Something Bothered Me, I Didn't Talk With Anyone About It. I Thought It Over All By Myself, Came To A Conclusion, And Took Action Alone. Not That I Really Felt Lonely. I Thought That's Just The Way Things Are. Human Beings, In The Final Analysis, Have To Survive On Their Own.

Soccer

Lonely

Couple

She Was, If Anything, On The Plain Side, At Least Not The Type To Attract Men Wherever She Went. But There Was Something In Her Face That Was Meant For Me Alone. Everytime We Met, I Took A Good Look At Her. And Loved What I Saw.

Men

Looks

Faces

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

Beautiful

Running

Real

Now And Then May Not Be Enough…you Have To Enjoy It While You’re Still Young. Enjoy It To The Fullest. You Can Use The Memories Of What You Did To Warm Your Body After You Get Old And Can’t Do It Anymore.

Memories

Use

Body

The Sense Of Tragedy - According To Aristotle - Comes, Ironically Enough, Not From The Protagonist's Weak Points But From His Good Qualities. Do You Know What I'm Getting At? People Are Drawn Deeper Into Tragedy Not By Their Defects But By Their Virtues. ... [but] We Accept Irony Through A Device Called Metaphor. And Through That We Grow And Become Deeper Human Beings.

People

Tragedy

Quality

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

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.

Loneliness

Animal

Moon

If You Want To Talk About Something New, You Have To Make Up A New Kind Of Language.

Want

Language

Kind

This Is No Honky-tonk Parade. 1q84 Is The Real World, Where A Cut Draws Real Blood, Where Pain Is Real Pain And Fear Is Real Fear. The Moon In The Sky Is No Paper Moon.

Pain

Real

Cutting

This Uneasiness Comes Over Me From Time To Time, And I Feel As If I've Somehow Been Pieced Together From Two Different Puzzles.

Two

Together

Different

In Dreams Begins Responsiblities.

Dream

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?

Sweet

Spring

Nice

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.

Dream

Jobs

Writing

But What Seems Like A Reasonable Distance To One Person Might Feel Too Far To Somebody Else.

Distance

Might

Feels

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

Kindness

World

Serious

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.

Writing

Trying

World

I May Not Look It, But I Can Be A Very Patient Guy. And Killing Time Is One Of My Specialities.

Guy

Looks

May

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.

Life

Cat

Kids

I Would Never See Her Again, Except In Memory. She Was Here, And Now She's Gone. There Is No Middle Ground. Probably Is A Word That You May Find South Of The Border. But Never, Ever West Of The Sun.

Memories

Gone

May

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

Fall

Reality

Sound

I Am Struck By How, Except When You're Young, You Really Need To Prioritize In Life, Figuring Out In What Order You Should Divide Up Your Time And Energy. If You Don't Get That Sort Of System Set By A Certain Age, You'll Lack Focus And Your Life Will Be Out Of Balance.

Order

Focus

Balance

The Rain That Fell On The City Runs Down The Dark Gutters And Empties Into The Sea Without Even Soaking The Ground

Running

Rain

Dark

They Take The Circuits Out Of People’s Brains That Make It Possible For Them To Think For Themselves. Their World Is Like The One That George Orwell Depicted In His Novel. I’m Sure You Realize That There Are Plenty Of People Who Are Looking For Exactly That Kind Of Brain Death. It Makes Life A Lot Easier. You Don’t Have To Think About Difficult Things, Just Shut Up And Do What Your Superiors Tell You To Do.

Thinking

People

Brain

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.

Years

Long

Important

Everything Passes. Nobody Gets Anything For Keeps. And That's How We've Got To Live.

Mere Humans Who Root Through Their Refrigerators At Three O'clock In The Morning Can Only Produce Writing That Matches What They Do. And That Includes Me.

Morning

Writing

Roots

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.

Dream

Writing

Night

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

World

Do You Love Me

Enough

To Me, Love Is A Pure Idea Forged In Flesh, Awkwardly Maybe, But It Had To Connect To Somewhere, Despite Twists And Turns Of Underground Cable. An All-too-perfect Thing. Sometimes The Lines Get Crossed. Or You Get A Wrong Number. But That's Nobody's Fault. It'll Always Be Like That, So Long As We Exist In This Physical Form. As A Matter Of Principle.

Love

Wrong Number

Ideas

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.

Writing

Imagination

Chamber Music

If You Think Of Someone Enough, You’re Sure To Meet Them Again.

Thinking

Enough

Ifs

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.

Book

Writing

Years

What’s Most Important Is What You Can’t See But Can Feel In Your Heart. To Be Able To Grasp Something Of Value, Sometimes You Have To Perform Seemingly Inefficient Acts. But Even Activities That Appear Fruitless Don’t Necessarily End Up So. That’s The Feeling I Have, As Someone Who’s Felt This, Who’s Experienced It.

Heart

Feelings

Important

Time Flows In Strange Ways On Sundays, And Sights Become Mysteriously Distorted.

Sunday

Sight

Way

So The Fact That I’m Me And No One Else Is One Of My Greatest Assets. Emotional Hurt Is The Price A Person Has To Pay In Order To Be Independent.

Running

Hurt

Inspirational Life

Inside Him, Twenty Years Dissolved And Mixed Into One Complex, Swirling Whole. Everything That Had Accumulated Over The Years-- All He Had Seen, All The Words He Has Spoken, All The Values He Had Held-- All Of It Coalesced Into One Solid, Thick Pillar In His Heart, The Core Of Which Was Spinning Like A Potter's Wheel. Wordlessly, Tengo Observed The Scene, As If Watching The Destruction And Rebirth Of A Planet.

Heart

Years

Twenties

A Person Learns How To Love Himself Through The Simple Acts Of Loving And Being Loved By Someone Else.

Simple

How To Love

Persons

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.

Reality

Two

Unexpected

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.

Morning

Loneliness

Book

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?

Dream

People

Training

I Don't Know -- Maybe The World Has Two Different Kinds Of People, And For One Kind The World Is This Completely Logical, Rice Pudding Place, And For The Other It's All Hit-or-miss Macaroni Gratin.

Two

People

Missing

I Found A Bill Evans Record In The Bookcase And Was Listening To It While Drying My Hair When I Realized That It Was The Record I Had Played In Naoko's Room On The Night Of Her Birthday, The Night She Cried And I Took Her In My Arms. That Had Happened Only Six Months Earlier, But It Felt Like Something From A Much Remoter Past. Maybe It Felt That Way Because I Had Thought About It So Often-too Often, To The Point Where It Had Distorted My Sense Of Time.

Past

Night

Hair

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

Regret

House

Half

If They Invent A Car That Runs On Stupid Jokes, You Could Go Far.

Running

Stupid

Car

Our Hearts Are Not Stones. A Stone May Disintegrate In Time And Lose Its Outward Form. But Hearts Never Disintegrate. They Have No Outward Form, And Whether Good Or Evil, We Can Always Communicate Them To One Another.

Heart

Evil

May

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.

Loneliness

Twilight

Thinking

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

Imperfect World

Imperfection

Norwegian Wood

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

Years

Said

The House Kept Its Own Time, Like The Old-fashioned Grandfather Clock In The Living Room. People Who Happened By Raised The Weights, And As Long As The Weights Were Wound, The Clock Continued Ticking Away. But With People Gone And The Weights Unattended, Whole Chunks Of Time Were Left To Collect In Deposits Of Faded Life On The Floor.

Long

People

House

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!

Stars

Rain

Book

I Have No Idea! I Have Been Writing For 35 Years And From The Beginning Up To Now The Situation's Almost The Same. I'm Kind Of An Ugly Duckling. Always The Duckling, Never The Swan.

Writing

Swans

Ugly Duckling

In My Younger Days, I Was Trying To Write Sophisticated Prose And Fantastic Stories.

Writing

Trying

Stories

My Heart Would Swell Without Warning, And Tremble, And Lurch With A Stab Of Pain. I Would Try Clamping My Eyes Shut And Gritting My Teeth, And Waiting For It To Pass. And It Would Pass -- But Slowly, Taking Its Own Time, And Leaving A Dull Ache Behind.

Pain

Eye

Heart

Start Making Excuses And There's No End To It. I Can't Live That Kind Of Life.

Kind

Excuse

Ends

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.

Light

Long Ago

People

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

Missing

Holes

Seasons Change

Our Responsibility Begins With Our Imagination.

Responsibility

Imagination

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.

Reading

Matter

Details

I Closed My Eyes And Tried To Sleep. But It Was Not Until Much Later That I Was Able To Get Any Real Sleep. In A Place Far Away From Anyone Or Anywhere, I Drifted Off For A Moment.

Real

Sleep

Eye

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

Perfection

Imperfect

Limitless

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

Important

May

Propositions

No, I Don't Want Your Money. The World Moves Less By Money Than By What You Owe People And What They Owe You. I Don't Like To Owe Anybody Anything, So I Keep To Myself As Much On The Lending Side As I Can.

Moving

People

World

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.

Cute

Girl

Father

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

Ties

Together

Lost Things

It's Just That You're About To Do Something Out Of The Ordinary. And After You Do Something Like That, The Everyday Look Of Things Might Seem To Change A Little. Things May Look Different To You Than They Did Before. But Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Always Only One Reality.

Reality

Everyday

Ordinary

I've Translated A Lot Of American Literature Into Japanese, And I Think That What Makes A Good Translator Is, Above All, A Feel For Language And Also A Great Affection For The Work You're Translating. If One Of Those Elements Is Missing The Translation Won't Be Worth Much.

Thinking

Missing

Elements

We Heard No Other Sounds. We Met No Other People. We Saw Only Two Bright Red Birds Leap Startled From The Center Of The Meadow And Dart Into The Woods.

Two

People

Bird

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

Life

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.

Thinking

Order

Years

Nobody's Going To Win All The Time. On The Highway Of Life You Can't Always Be In The Fast Lane.

Acceptance

Winning

Lanes

Is It Possible, In The Final Analysis, For One Human Being To Achieve Perfect Understanding Of Another? We Can Invest Enormous Time And Energy In Serious Efforts To Know Another Person, But In The End, How Close Can We Come To That Person's Essence? We Convince Ourselves That We Know The Other Person Well, But Do We Really Know Anything Important About Anyone?

Love

Friendship

Philosophy

I Never Plan. I Never Know What The Next Page Is Going To Be..... But That's The Fun Of Writing A Novel Or A Story, Because I Don't Know What's Going To Happen Next.

Fun

Writing

Stories

As I See It, You Are Living With Something That You Keep Hidden Deep Inside. Something Heavy. I Felt It From The First Time I Met You. You Have A Strong Gaze, As If You Have Made Up Your Mind About Something. To Tell You The Truth, I Myself Carry Such Things Around Inside. Heavy Things. That Is How I Can See It In You.

Strong

Mind

Heavy Things

You Have To Make An Effort To Always Look At The Good Side, Always Think About The Good Things. Then You've Got Nothing To Be Afraid Of. If Something Bad Comes Up, You Do More Thinking At That Point.

Thinking

Effort

Looks

The Power To Concentrate Was The Most Important Thing. Living Without This Power Would Be Like Opening One’s Eyes Without Seeing Anything.

Eye

Important

Would Be

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.

Romantic

True Love

Heart

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.

Spring

Practice

White

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

Wall

Trying

Venture

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.

Memories

Dark

What If

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.

Thinking

Japan

Style

Everything Just Blows Me Away.

Blow

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.

Girl

Believe

Heart

The Good Thing About Writing Book Is That You Can Dream While You Are Awake.

Dream

Book

Writing

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.

Depressing

Moving

Rain

I Feel Like I've Swallowed A Cloudy Sky

Sky

Cloudy Skies

Feels

My Point Is: In This Whole Wide World The Only Person You Can Depend On Is You.

World

Persons

Whole

For Example, The Wind Has Its Reasons. We Just Don't Notice As We Go About Our Lives. But Then, At Some Point, We Are Made To Notice. The Wind Envelops You With A Certain Purpose In Mind, And It Rocks You. The Wind Knows Everything That's Inside You. And Not Just The Wind. Everything, Including A Stone. They All Know Us Very Well. From Top To Bottom. It Only Occurs To Us At Certain Times. And All We Can Do Is Go With Those Things. As We Take Them In, We Survive, And Deepen.

Wind

Rocks

Mind

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

Ruined

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

Life And Love

Knowing

Right Now

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

Metaphysical

Form

Objects

When I'm Running I Don't Have To Talk To Anybody And Don't Have To Listen To Anybody. This Is A Part Of My Day I Can't Do Without.

Running

I Can

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

Perfection

Fresh Start

Happens

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

World

For Novelists Or Musicians, If They Really Want To Create Something, They Need To Go Downstairs And Find A Passage To Get Into The Second Basement. What I Want To Do Is Go Down There, But Still Stay Sane.

Musician

Novelists

Needs

Understanding Is But The Sum Of Misunderstandings.

Understanding

Misunderstanding

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.

Space

Doe

Taste

I'm A Very Ordinary Human Being; I Just Happen To Like Reading Books.

Book

Reading

Ordinary

At Times Like This, Adults Need A Drink

Adults

Needs

Drink

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.

Views

Mind

Mountain

You Live By Yourself For A Stretch Of Time And You Get To Staring At Different Objects. Sometimes You Talk To Yourself. You Take Meals In Crowded Joints. You Develop An Intimate Relationship With Your Used Subaru. You Slowly But Surely Become A Has-been.

Intimate Relationships

Meals

Different

People Lose Fifty Million Skin Cells Every Day. The Cells Get Scraped Off And Turn Into Invisible Dust, And Disappear Into The Air. Maybe We Are Nothing But Skin Cells As Far As The World Is Concerned.

Air

Cells

Dust

There Are Symbolic Dreams-- Dreams That Symbolize Some Reality. Then There Are Symbolic Realities -- Realities That Symbolize A Dream. Symbols Are What You Might Call The Honorary Town Councillors Of The Worm Universe. In The Worm Universe, There Is Nothing Unusual About A Dairy Cow Seeking A Pair Of Pliers. A Cow Is Bound To Get Her Pliers Sometime. It Has Nothing To Do With Me.

Dream

Reality

Pliers

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.

Love

Teenager

Cat

If We Reverse The Outer Shell And The Essence--in Other Words, Consider The Outer Shell The Essence And The Essence Only The Shell--our Lives Might Be A Whole Lot Easier To Understand.

Essence

Shells

Might

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.

Book

Writing

Heart

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.

Girl

Goodbye

Eye

Kumiko And I Felt Something For Each Other From The Beginning. It Was Not One Of Those Strong, Impulsive Feelings That Can Hit Two People Like An Electric Shock When They First Meet, But Something Quieter And Gentler, Like Two Tiny Lights Traveling In Tandem Through A Vast Darkness And Drawing Imperceptibly Closer To Each Other As They Go. As Our Meetings Grew More Frequent, I Felt Not So Much That I Had Met Someone New As That I Had Chanced Upon A Dear Old Friend.

Strong

Two

Drawing

As If To Build A Fence Around The Fatal Emptiness Inside Her, She Had To Create A Sunny Person That She Became. But If You Peeled Away The Ornamental Egos That She Had Built, There Was Only An Abbys Of Nothingness And The Intense Thirst That Came With It. Though She Tried To Forget It, The Nothingness Would Visit Her Periodically - On A Lonely Rainy Afternoon, Or At Dawn When She Woke Up From A Nightmare. What She Needed At Such Times Was To Be Held By Someone, Anyone.

Lonely

Ego

Dawn

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

Heart

Toxic

Poison

Since I'm A Novelist I'm The Opposite Of You - I Believe That What's Most Important Is What Cannot Be Measured. I'm Not Denying Your Way Of Thinking, But The Greater Part Of People's Lives Consist Of Things That Are Unmeasurable, And Trying To Change All These To Something Measurable Is Realistically Impossible.

Believe

Thinking

Opposites

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

Irony

Metaphor

Accepting

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.

Book

Chinese

Together

Has The Dark Shadow Really Disappeared? Or Is It Inside Me, Concealed, Waiting For Its Chance To Reappear? Like A Clever Thief Hidden Inside A House, Breathing Quietly, Waiting Until Everyone’s Asleep. I Have Looked Deep Inside Myself, Trying To Detect Something That Might Be There. But Just As Our Consciousness Is A Maze, So Too Is Our Body. Everywhere You Turn There’s Darkness, And A Blind Spot. Everywhere You Find Silent Hints, Everywhere A Surprise Is Waiting For You.

Clever

Dark

Breathing

Every Day I Go To My Study And Sit At My Desk And Put The Computer On. At That Moment, I Have To Open The Door. It's A Big, Heavy Door. You Have To Go Into The Other Room. Metaphorically, Of Course. And You Have To Come Back To This Side Of The Room. And You Have To Shut The Door.

Doors

Rooms

Sides

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

Venom

Passage Of Time

Passages

You Can’t Look Too Far Ahead. Do That And You’ll Lose Sight Of What You’re Doing And Stumble. I’m Not Saying You Should Focus Solely On The Details Right In Front Of You, Mind You. You’ve Got To Look Ahead A Bit Or Else You’ll Bump Into Something. You’ve Got To Conform To The Proper Order And At The Same Time Keep An Eye Out For What’s Ahead. That’s Critical, No Matter What You’re Doing.

Eye

Sight

Order

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.

Mean

Opposites

Two

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.

Moving

Reading

Sitting

Those Were Strange Days, Now That I Look Back At Them. In The Midst Of Life, Everything Revolved Around Death.

Looks

Strange

Midst

I Was Thirty-seven Then, Strapped In My Seat As The Huge 747 Plunged Through Dense Cloud Cover On Approach To The Hamburg Airport.

Clouds

Airports

Seven

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

Book

Individual

Curious

Kindness And A Caring Mind Are Two Separate Qualities. Kindness Is Manners. It Is Superficial Custom, An Acquired Practice. Not So The Mind. The Mind Is Deeper, Stronger, And, I Believe, It Is Far More Inconstant.

Kindness

Believe

Caring

Be Fearless, Be Brave, Be Bold, Love Yourself

Love You

Brave

Fearless

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

Writing

Novel

Seems

Everybody's Born With Some Different Thing At The Core Of Their Existence. And That Thing, Whatever It Is, Becomes Like A Heat Source That Runs Each Person From The Inside. I Have One Too, Of Course. Like Everybody Else. But Sometimes It Gets Out Of Hand. It Swells Or Shrinks Inside Me, And It Shakes Me Up. What I'd Really Like To Do Is Find A Way To Communicate That Feeling To Another Person.

Running

Hands

Feelings

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

Heart

Body

Restless

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

Race

Order

Goal

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.

Friendship

Lonely

Disappointment

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.

Long

Alive

Individual

Nakata's Empty Inside... Do You Know What It Means To Be Completely Empty? Being Empty Is Like A Vacant House. An Unlocked, Vacant House. Anybody Can Come In, Anytime They Want. That's What Scares Me The Most

Mean

House

Scare

I'm Always Tripped Up By The Eternal Who Am I?

Eternal

Friends Don't Need The Intervention Of A Third Party. Friendship's A Voluntary Thing.

Party

Needs

Third Parties

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

Reality

Able

Imagine

This Place Is Too Calm, Too Natural--too Complete. I Don't Deserve It. At Least Not Yet.

Calm

Natural

Deserve

It's Not Right For One Friend To Do All The Giving And The Other To Do All The Taking: That's Not Real Friendship.

Giving

One Friend

Beyond The Window, Some Kind Of Small, Black Thing Shot Across The Sky. A Bird, Possibly. Or It Might Have Been Someone's Soul Being Blown To The Far Side Of The World.

Sky

Bird

Soul

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

Pregnancy

Ebb And Flow

Waiting

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

Small Numbers

People

Language

...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.

Thinking

People

Brain

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.

Oil

Trying

Musician

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

Running

Distance

Might

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.

Balance

Important

Together

I'm Not So Weird To Me.

Whether In Music Or In Fiction, The Most Basic Thing Is Rhythm. Your Style Needs To Have Good, Natural, Steady Rhythm, Or People Won't Keep Reading Your Work.

Reading

People

Style

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

Knowing

Normal

Said

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.

Children

Heart

Two

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.

Character

Thinking

Order

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.

People

Advice

World

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

Heart

Forever

Staring

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.

Writing

Sleep

Night

Her Cry Was The Saddest Sound Of Orgasm That I Had Ever Heard.

Sound

Cry

Heard

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

Love

Fall

Missing

Of Course It Hurt That We Could Never Love Each Other In A Physical Way. We Would Have Been Far More Happy If We Had. But That Was Like The Tides, The Change Of Seasons--something Immutable, An Immovable Destiny We Could Never Alter. No Matter How Cleverly We Might Shelter It, Our Delicate Friendship Wasn't Going To Last Forever. We Were Bound To Reach A Dead End. That Was Painfully Clear.

Love

Relationship

Hurt

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

Heart

Important

Finals

Love With Complications. Scenery Was The Last Thing On My Mind.

Mind

Lasts

Norwegian Wood

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.

Peace

Night

Should Have

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

Running

Three

Marathon

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

Flower

Farewell

Men

But Metaphors Help Eliminate What Separates You And Me.

Helping

Metaphor

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.

Dream

Responsibility

Flip

I Didn't Start Running Because Somebody Asked Me To Become A Runner. Just Like I Didn't Become A Novelist Because Someone Asked Me To. One Day, Out Of The Blue, I Wanted To Write A Novel. And One Day, Out Of The Blue, I Started To Run-simply Because I Wanted To. I've Always Done Whatever I Felt Like Doing In Life. People May Try To Stop Me, And Convince Me I'm Wrong, But I Won't Change.

Running

Writing

Blue

If You Never Noticed, It Never Happened.

Happened

Ifs

The Sun Sliced Through The Windshield, Sealing Me In Light. I Closed My Eyes And Felt The Warmth On My Eyelids. Sunlight Traveled A Long Distance To Reach This Planet; An Infinitesimal Portion Of That Sunlight Was Enough To Warm My Eyelids. I Was Moved. That Something As Insignificant As An Eyelid Had Its Place In The Workings On The Universe, That The Cosmic Order Did Not Overlook This Momentary Fact.

Distance

Eye

Light

The Ones With No Imagination Are Always The Quickest To Justify Themselves.

Imagination

Justify

Please Remember: Things Are Not What They Seem.

Remember

Please

Things Are Not What They Seem

An Empty Shell. Those Were The First Words That Sprang To Mind. .... Something Incredibly Important - .. - Had Disappeared From Miu For Good. Leaving Behind Not Life, But Its Absence

Leaving

Mind

Important

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.

Mean

Dark

Adults

All Things In My Novels Are Real For Me. Some Western Critics Said That Garcia Marquez's Novels Are Magic Realism. However, I Believe That Marquez Must Have Experienced Everything In His Novels.

Real

Believe

Magic

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?

Real

Thinking

Clouds

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.

Suicide

Heart

People

Is It Possible To Become Friends With A Butterfly?

Butterfly

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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