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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.

-Haruki Murakami

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They Take The Circuits

Haruki Murakami

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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.

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Unfortunately, The Clock Is Ticking, The Hours Are Going By. The Past Increases, The Future Recedes. Possibilities Decreasing, Regrets Mounting.

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.

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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?

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

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It Is Hard To Be An Individual In Japan.

I Can't Understand Nothingness. I Can't Understand It And I Can't Imagine It.

I Myself Have Been On My Own And Utterly Independent Since I Graduated. I Haven't Belonged To Any Company Or Any System. It Isn't Easy To Live Like This In Japan.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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I Began To Draw An Invisible Boundary Between Myself And Other People. No Matter Who I Was Dealing With. I Maintained A Set Distance, Carefully Monitoring The Person’s Attitude So That They Wouldn’t Get Any Closer. I Didn’t Easily Swallow What Other People Told Me. My Only Passions Were Books And Music

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To Keep On Going, You Have To Keep Up The Rhythm.

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.

I Was Reduced To Pure Concept. My Flesh Had Dissolved; My Form Had Dissipated. I Floated In Space. Liberated Of My Corporeal Being, But Without Dispensation To Go Anywhere Else.i Was Adrift In The Void. Somewhere Across The Fine Line Separating Nightmare From Reality.

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

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

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

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We All Die And Disappear, But That's Because The Mechanism Of The World Itself Is Built On Destruction And Loss.

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.

Waves Of Thought Are Stirring. In A Twilight Corner Of Her Consciousness, One Tiny Fragment And Another Tiny Fragment Call Out Wordlessly To Eachother, Their Spreading Ripples Intermingling.

When Someone Is Trying Very Hard To Get Something, They Don't. And When They're Running Away From Something As Hard As They Can, It Usually Catches Up With Them.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Irrepressible Curiosity Vied With An Instinctive Fear.

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

Sometimes When I'm With You, I Remember Things I Lost When I Was Your Age. Like I Remember The Sound Of The Rain And The Smell Of The Wind.

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

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

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

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

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

He Sometimes Wondered If She Had Become Involved With Him Just So That She Could Cry In Someone's Arms. Maybe She Can't Cry Alone, And That's Why She Needs Me.

The Best Way To Think About Reality, I Had Decided, Was To Get As Far Away From It As Possible.

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?

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.

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

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.

Genius Or Fool, You Don't Live In The World Alone. You Can Hide Underground Or You Can Build A Wall Around Yourself, But Somebody's Going To Come Along And Screw Up The Works.

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.

It Was A Strange Feeling, Like Touching A Void.

In Traveling, A Companion, In Life, Compassion.

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.

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.

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

Her Voice Was Like A Line From An Old Black-and-white Jean-luc Godard Movie, Filtering In Just Beyond The Frame Of My Consciousness.

Black And White

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.

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.

Everybody Feels Safe Belonging Not To The Excluded Minority But To The Excluding Majority. You Think, Oh, I’m Glad That’s Not Me. It’s Basically The Same In All Periods In All Societies. If You Belong To The Majority, You Can Avoid Thinking About Lots Of Troubling Things.

I Have Read All My Novels That Were Translated Into English. Reading My Novels Is Enjoyable Because I Forget Almost All The Content In Them.

Why Do People Have To Build Such Depressing Places? I'm Not Saying That Every Nook And Cranny Of The World Has To Be Beautiful, But Does It Have To Be This Ugly?

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!

So That's How We Live Our Lives. No Matter How Deep And Fatal The Loss, No Matter How Important The Thing That's Stolen From Us--that's Snatched Right Out Of Our Hands--even If We Are Left Completely Changed, With Only The Outer Layer Of Skin From Before, We Continue To Play Out Our Lives This Way, In Silence. We Draw Ever Nearer To The End Of Our Allotted Span Of Time, Bidding It Farewell As It Trails Off Behind. Repeating, Often Adroitly, The Endless Deeds Of The Everyday. Leaving Behind A Feeling Of Immeasurable Emptiness.

This Is What It Means To Live On. When Granted Hope, A Person Uses It As Fuel, As A Guidepost To Life. It Is Impossible To Live Without Hope.

Only People Who Have Been Discriminated Against Can Really Know How Much It Hurts. Each Person Feels The Pain In His Own Way, Each Has His Own Scars. So I Think I'm As Concerned About Fairness And Justice As Anybody. But What Disgusts Me Even More Are People Who Have No Imagination. The Kind T. S. Elliot Calls 'hollow Men'. People Who Fill Up That Lack Of Imagination With Heartless Bits Of Straw, Not Even Aware Of What They're Doing. Callous People Who Throw A Lot Of Empty Words At You, Trying To Force You To Do What You Don't Want To.

Death Is Not The Opposite Of Life, But A Part Of It.

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

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.

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

Mediocrity's Like A Spot On A Shirt—it Never Comes Off.

You Can Hide As Cleverly As You Like, But In The Final Analysis Mimicry Is Deception, Pure And Simple. It Doesn't Solve A Thing.

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

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

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.

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

You Don't Have To Judge The Whole World By Your Own Standards. Not Everybody Is Like You, You Know.

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

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

Sometimes I Get Real Lonely Sleeping With You.

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?

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.

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

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

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

Pointless Thinking Is Worse Than No Thinking At All.

"dance," Said The Sheep Man. "yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougotta Dance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, Yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, Wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, You'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, Nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou're Tired, Tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, Okay? Justdon'tletyourfeetstop."

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.

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

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

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’ve Never Once Thought About How I Was Going To Die,” She Said. “i Can’t Think About It. I Don’t Even Know How I’m Going To Live.

The Grounds Of The Place Were Dominated By Several Large, Old Willow Trees That Towered Over The Surrounding Stone Wall And Swayed Soundlessly In The Wind Like Lost Souls.

Living Like An Empty Shell Is Not Really Living, No Matter How Many Years It May Go On. The Heart And Flesh Of An Empty Shell Give Birth To Nothing More Than The Life Of An Empty Shell.

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

The Strength I'm Looking For Isn't The Type Where You Win Or Lose. I'm Not After A Wall That'll Repel Power Coming From Outside. What I Want Us The Kind Of Strength To Be Able To Absorb That Kind Of Power, To Stand Up To It.the Strength To Quietly Endure Things - Unfairness, Misfortunes, Sadness, Mistakes, Misunderstandings.

But I Didn't Understand Then. That I Could Hurt Somebody So Badly She Would Never Recover. That A Person Can, Just By Living, Damage Another Human Being Beyond Repair.

Fairness Is A Concept That Holds Only In Limited Situations. Yet We Want The Concept To Extend To Everything, In And Out Of Phase. From Snails To Hardware Stores To Married Life. Maybe No One Finds It, Or Even Misses It, But Fairness Is Like Love. What Is Given Has Nothing To Do With What We Seek.

I Think History Is Collective Memories. In Writing, I'm Using My Own Memory, And I'm Using My Collective Memory.

Letters Are Just Pieces Of Paper," I Said. "burn Them, And What Stays In Your Heart Will Stay; Keep Them, And What Vanishes Will Vanish.

Which Is Why I Am Writing This Book. To Think. To Understand. It Just Happens To Be The Way I'm Made. I Have To Write Things Down To Feel I Fully Comprehend Them.

Concentration Is One Of The Happiest Things In My Life.

For A While" Is A Phrase Whose Length Can't Be Measured.at Least By The Person Who's Waiting.

There's No War That Will End All Wars.

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

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

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

This Is One More Piece Of Advice I Have For You: Don't Get Impatient. Even If Things Are So Tangled Up You Can't Do Anything, Don't Get Desperate Or Blow A Fuse And Start Yanking On One Particular Thread Before It's Ready To Come Undone. You Have To Realize It's Going To Be A Long Process And That You'll Work On Things Slowly, One At A Time.

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

Listen Up—there’s No War That Will End All Wars,’ Crow Tells Me. ‘war Breeds War. Lapping Up The Blood Shed By Violence, Feeding On Wounded Flesh. War Is A Perfect, Self-contained Being. You Need To Know That.

The Dead Will Always Be Dead, But We Have To Go On Living.

The Others In The Dorm Thought I Wanted To Be A Writer, Because I Was Always Alone With A Book, But I Had No Such Ambition. There Was Nothing I Wanted To Be.

I'm Not A Fast Thinker, But Once I Am Interested In Something, I Am Doing It For Many Years.

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

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.

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

Her Smile Steps Offstage For A Moment, Then Does An Encore, All While I'm Dealing With My Blushing Face.

You Don’t Get It, Do You?" I Said. “it’s Not A Question Of ‘what Then’. Some People Get A Kick Out Of Reading Railroad Timetables And That’s All They Do All Day. Some People Make Huge Model Boats Out Of Matchsticks. So What’s Wrong If There Happens To Be One Guy In The World Who Enjoys Trying To Understand You?

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.

Two-thirds Of Earth's Surface Is Ocean, And All We Can See With The Naked Eye Is The Surface.

Whenever I Write A Novel, Music Just Sort Of Naturally Slips In (much Like Cats Do, I Suppose).

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Why?" She Screamed. "are You Crazy? You Know The English Subjunctive, You Understand Trigonometry, You Can Read Marx, And You Don't Know The Answer To Something As Simple As That? Why Do You Even Have To Ask? Why Do You Have To Make A Girl Say Something Like This? I Like You More Than I Like Him, That's All. I Wish I Had Fallen In Love With Somebody A Little More Handsome, Of Course. But I Didn't. I Fell In Love With You!

Listen. I May Not Be Much, But I'm All I've Got. Maybe You Need A Magnifying Glass To Find My Face In My High School Graduation Photo. Maybe I Haven't Got Any Family Or Friends. Yes, Yes, I Know All That. But, Strange As It Might Seem, I'm Not Entirely Dissatisfied With Life... I Feel Pretty Much At Home With What I Am. I Don't Want To Go Anywhere. I Don't Want Any Unicorns Behind Fences.

Age Certainly Hadn't Conferred Any Smarts On Me. Character Maybe, But Mediocrity Is A Constant, As One Russian Writer Put It. Russian Writers Have A Way With Aphorisms. They Probably Spend All Winter Thinking Them Up.

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.

While They're Still Alive, People Can Become Ghosts.

Have You Ever Had That Feeling—that You’d Like To Go To A Whole Different Place And Become A Whole Different Self?

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

Most Things Are Forgotten Over Time. Even The War Itself, The Life-and-death Struggle People Went Through, Is Now Like Something From The Distant Past. We're So Caught Up In Our Everyday Lives That Events Of The Past, Like Ancient Stars That Have Burned Out, Are No Longer In Orbit Around Our Minds. There Are Just Too Many Things We Have To Think About Every Day, Too Many New Things We Have To Learn. New Styles, New Information, New Technology, New Terminology ... But Still, 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. They Remain With Us Forever, Like A Touchstone. And For Me, What Happened In The Woods That Day Is One Of These.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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