Background Image

...

"they Tell Us That The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself, But I Don't Believe That." He Said. Then, A Moment Later, He Added: "oh, The Fear Is There, All Right. It Comes To Us In Many Different Forms, At Different Times, And Overwhelms Us. But The Most Frightening Thing We Can Do At Such Times Is To Turn Our Backs On It, To Close Our Eyes. For Then We Take The Most Precious Thing Inside Us And Surrender It To Something Else. In My Case, That Something Was The Wave."

-Haruki Murakami

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

"they Tell Us That

Haruki Murakami

...

"they Tell Us That The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself, But I Don't Believe That." He Said. Then, A Moment Later, He Added: "oh, The Fear Is There, All Right. It Comes To Us In Many Different Forms, At Different Times, And Overwhelms Us. But The Most Frightening Thing We Can Do At Such Times Is To Turn Our Backs On It, To Close Our Eyes. For Then We Take The Most Precious Thing Inside Us And Surrender It To Something Else. In My Case, That Something Was The Wave."

Views: 5

Topic

More From Haruki Murakami

Grandfather Always Said School’s A Place Where They Take Sixteen Years To Wear Down Your Brain. Grandfather Hardly Went To School Either.

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.

The Library Was Like A Second Home. Or Maybe More Like A Real Home, More Than The Place I Lived In. By Going Every Day I Got To Know All The Lady Librarians Who Worked There. They Knew My Name And Always Said Hi. I Was Painfully Shy, Though, And Could Barely Reply.

Sometimes I Find It Too Hot To Run, And Sometimes Too Cold. Or Too Cloudy. But I Still Go Running. I Know That If I Didn't Go Running, I Wouldn't Go The Next Day Either. It's Not In Human Nature To Take Unnecessary Burdens Upon Oneself, So One's Body Soon Becomes Disaccustomed. It Mustn't Do That. It's The Same With Writing. I Write Every Day So That My Mind Doesn't Become Disaccustomed.

Death Leaves Cans Of Shaving Cream Half-used.

I Lost Some Of My Friends Because I Got So Famous, People Who Just Assumed That I Would Be Different Now. I Felt Like Everyone Hated Me. That Is The Most Unhappy Time Of My Life.

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

An Unhealthy Soul Requires A Healthy Body.

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.

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

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

I Write Weird Stories. I Don't Know Why I Like Weirdness So Much ... But When I Write, I Write Weird. That's Very Strange. When I'm Getting More And More Serious, I'm Getting More And More Weird.

If You Never Noticed, It Never Happened.

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

Passing Moments

When You Come Out Of The Storm, You Won’t Be The Same Person Who Walked In. That’s What This Storm’s All About.

I Happen To Like The Strange Ones. People Who Look Normal And Leads Normal Lives - They're The Ones You Have To Watch Out For.

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.

It Is Hard To Be An Individual In Japan.

My Peak? Would I Even Have One? I Hardly Had Had Anything You Could Call A Life. A Few Ripples, Some Rises And Falls. But That's It. Almost Nothing. Nothing Born Of Nothing. I'd Loved And Been Loved, But I Had Nothing To Show. It Was A Singularly Plain, Featureless Landscape. I Felt Like I Was In A Video Game. A Surrogate Pacman, Crunching Blindly Through A Labyrinth Of Dotted Lines. The Only Certainty Was My Death.

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

No Matter What They Wish For, No Matter How Far They Go, People Can Never Be Anything But Themselves. That's All.

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.

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.

If You Think God’s There, He Is. If You Don’t, He Isn’t. And If That’s What God’s Like, I Wouldn’t Worry About It.

I Didn't Read So Much Japanese Literature. Because My Father Was A Teacher Of Japanese Literature, I Just Wanted To Do Something Else.

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.

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.

The Thoughts That Occur To Me While I’m Running Are Like Clouds In The Sky. Clouds Of All Different Sizes. They Come And They Go, While The Sky Remains The Same Sky Always. The Clouds Are Mere Guests In The Sky That Pass Away And Vanish, Leaving Behind The Sky.

I Often Dream About The Dolphin Hotel.

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

The Light Of Morning Decomposes Everything.

I May Not Be The Most Likable Person In The World, But I Try Not To Upset People.

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.

But Who Can Say What's Best? That's Why You Need To Grab Whatever Chance You Have Of Happiness Where You Find It, And Not Worry About Other People Too Much. My Experience Tells Me That We Get No More Than Two Or Three Such Chances In A Life Time, And If We Let Them Go, We Regret It For The Rest Of Our Lives.

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

Being Active Every Day Makes It Easier To Hear That Inner Voice.

You Got To Know Your Limits. Once Is Enough, But You Got To Learn. A Little Caution Never Hurt Anyone. A Good Woodsman Has Only One Scar On Him. No More, No Less.

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

This Was Never Any Place I Was Meant To Be. This Isn’t A Place For Me.

Were Meant To Be

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

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

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.

We're All Kind Of Weird And Twisted And Drowning.

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.

I Read Naoko's Letter Again And Again, And Each Time I Read It I Would Be Filled With The Same Unbearable Sadness I Used To Feel Whenever Naoko Stared Into My Eyes. I Had No Way To Deal With It, No Place I Could Take It To Or Hide It Away. Like The Wind Passing Over My Body, It Had Neither Shape Nor Weight, Nor Could I Wrap Myself In It.

As A Novelist, You Could Say That I Am Dreaming While I Am Awake, And Every Day I Can Continue With Yesterday's Dream. Because It Is A Dream, There Are So Many Contradictions And I Have To Adjust Them To Make The Story Work. But, In Principle, The Original Dream Does Not Change.

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

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

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

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

Knowing Nothing

Pointless Thinking Is Worse Than No Thinking At All.

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

Chance Encounters Are What Keep Us Going.

Irrepressible Curiosity Vied With An Instinctive Fear.

It Is Sometimes Necessary For Each Person. Fill Up With Delicious Food, Get Drunk, Sing Loudly And Chat Frivolously.

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 Move, Therefore I Am.

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

No Matter What You Tell Me, No Matter How Legitimate Your Reasons, I Can Never Just Forget About You, I Can Never Push The Years We Spent Together Out Of My Mind. I Can't Do It Because It Really Happened, They Are Part Of My Life, And There Is No Way I Can Just Erase Them. That Would Be The Same As Erasing My Own Self.

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.

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

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

There Are Three Ways You Can Get Along With A Girl: One, Shut Up And Listen To What She Has To Say; Two, Tell Her You Like What She's Wearing; And Three, Treat Her To Really Good Food...if You Do All That And Still Don't Get The Results You Want, Better Give Up.

So I Made Up My Mind I Was Going To Find Someone Who Would Love Me Unconditionally Three Hundred And Sixty-five Days A Year. Watanabe: Wow, And Did Your Search Pay Off? M: That's The Hard Part. I Guess I've Been Waiting So Long I'm Looking For Perfection. That Makes It Tough.

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

She Was A Keen Observer, A Precise User Of Language, Sharp-tongued And Funny. She Could Stir Your Emotions. Yes, Really, That's What She Was So Good At - Stirring People's Emotions, Moving You. And She Knew She Had This Power...i Only Realized Later. At The Time, I Had No Idea What She Was Doing To Me.

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

Time, Of Course, Topples Everyone In Its Path Equally- The Way That Driver Beats His Old Horse Until It Dies. But The Thrashing We Receive Is One Of Frightful Gentleness. Few Of Us Even Realize That We Are Being Beaten.

What Was Lost Was Lost. There Was No Retrieving It, However You Schemed, No Returning To How Things Were, No Going Back.

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

Memories And Thoughts Age, Just As People Do. But Certain Thoughts Can Never Age, And Certain Memories Can Never Fade.

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.

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.

If You Remember Me, Then I Don't Care If Everyone Else Forgets.

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

In His Or Her Own Way, Everyone I Saw Before Me Looked Happy. Whether They Were Really Happy Or Just Looked It, I Couldn't Tell. But They Did Look Happy On This Pleasant Early Afternoon In Late September, And Because Of That I Felt A Kind Of Loneliness New To Me, As If I Were The Only One Here Who Was Not Truly Part Of The Scene.

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.

That's Evolution. Evolution's Always Hard. Hard And Bleak. No Such Thing As Happy Evolution

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 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.

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

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.

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

Please Think Of Me Like An Endangered Species And Just Observe Me Quietly From Far Away. If You Try To Talk To Me Or Touch Me Casually, I May Get Intimidated And Bite You. So Please Be Careful.

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

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

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.

Let Me Tell You Something, Mari. The Ground We Stand On Looks Solid Enough, But If Something Happens It Can Drop Right Out From Under You. And Once That Happens, You've Had It: Things'll Never Be The Same. All You Can Do Is Go On, Living Alone Down There In The Darkness.

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

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

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.

Shakespeare Said It Best,' Tamaru Said Quietly As He Gazed At That Lumpish, Misshapen Head. 'something Along These Lines: If We Die Today, We Do Not Have To Die Tomorrow, So Let Us Look To The Best In Each Other

One Heart Is Not Connected To Another Through Harmony Alone. They Are, Instead, Linked Deeply Through Their Wounds. Pain Linked To Pain, Fragility To Fragility. There Is No Silence Without A Cry Of Grief, No Forgiveness Without Bloodshed, No Acceptance Without A Passage Through Acute Loss. That Is What Lies At The Root Of True Harmony.

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.

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

Let The World Move Along As It Pleased. If It Had Any Business With Him, It Would Be Sure To Tell Him.

I Didn't Feel Like I Was In My Own Body; My Body Was Just A Lonely, Temporary Container I Happened To Be Borrowing.

But Still," Ayumi Said, "it Seems To Me That This World Has A Serious Shortage Of Both Logic And Kindness." "you May Be Right," Aomame Said, "but It's Too Late To Trade It In For Another One.

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.

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.

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

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

Still, In The End, We All Die Just The Same.

Memory Is So Crazy! It's Like We've Got These Drawers Crammed With Tons Of Useless Stuff. Meanwhile, All The Really Important Things We Just Keep Forgetting, One After The Other.

I've Been Lonely For So Long. And I've Been Hurt So Deeply. If Only I Could Have Met You Again A Long Time Ago, Then I Wouldn't Have Had To Take All These Detours To Get Here.' Tengo Shook His Head. 'i Don't Think So. This Way Is Just Fine. This Is Exactly The Right Time. For Both Of Us. [...] We Needed That Much Time.... To Understand How Lonely We Really Were.

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

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

No One Could Say How Long That Life Would Last. Whatever Has Form Can Disappear In An Instant.

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

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.

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.

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

Nature Is Actually Unnatural

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.

Don't Let Thoughts Of Me Hold You Back. Just Do What You Want To Do. Otherwise, I Might End Up Taking You With Me, And That Is The One Thing I Don't Want To Do. I Don't Want To Interfere With Your Life.

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.

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.

Possibilities Are Like Cancer. The More I Think About Them, The More They Multiply, And There's No Way To Stop Them. I'm Out Of Control.

And As The Years Have Passed, The Time Has Grown Longer. The Sad Truth Is That What I Could Recall In Five Seconds All Too Needed Ten, Then Thirty, Then A Full Minute - Like Shadows Lengthening At Dusk. Someday, I Suppose, The Shadows Will Be Swallowed Up In Darkness.

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

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 Be This Lonely? What's The Point Of It All? Millions Of People In This World, All Of Them Yearning, Looking To Others To Satisfy Them, Yet Isolating Themselves. Why? Was The Earth Put Here Just To Nourish Human Loneliness?

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

And Her Sleep Was Too Long And Deep For That:so Deep That She Left Her Normal Reality Behind.

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.

Your Heart Is Like A Great River After A Long Spell Of Rain, Spilling Over Its Banks. All Signposts That Once Stood On The Ground Are Gone, Inundated And Carried Away By That Rush Of Water. And Still The Rain Beats Down On The Surface Of The River. Every Time You See A Flood Like That On The News You Tell Yourself: That’s It. That’s My Heart.

Loving Another Person Is A Wonderful Thing, And If That Love Is Sincere, No One Ends Up Tossed Into A Labyrinth. You Have To Have More Faith In Yourself.

Despite Your Best Efforts, People Are Going To Be Hurt When It's Time For Them To Be Hurt.

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.

Is This What It Means To Go Back To Square One? Most Likely. He Had Nothing Left To Lose, Other Than His Life.

Only The Dead Stay Seventeen Forever.

You’re Really Cute, Midori,” I Corrected Myself. “what Do You Mean Really Cute?” “so Cute The Mountains Crumble And The Oceans Dry Up.

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

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

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.

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.

In The Spring Of Her Twenty-second Year, Sumire Fell In Love For The First Time In Her Life.

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

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.

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.

I Wander Though China. Without Ever Having Boarded A Plane. My Travels Take Place Here In The Tokoyo Subways, In The Backseat Of A Taxi... All Of A Sudden This City Will Start To Go. In A Flash, The Buildings Will Crumble. Over The Tokyo Streets Will Fall My China, Like Ash, Leaching Into Everything It Touches. Slowly, Gradually, Until Nothing Remains. No, This Isn't A Place For Me.

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

Life Is Here, Death Is Over There. I Am Here, Not Over There.

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

Autumn Finally Arrived. And When It Did, I Came To A Decision. Something Had To Give: I Couldn't Keep On Living Like This.

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.

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.

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.

I'm In No Position To Hand Down Any Advice," He Said, "but There's A Rule I Follow When I Don't Know What To Do." "a Rule?" "if You Have To Choose Between Something That Has Form And Something That Doesn't, Go For The One Without Form. That's My Rule. Whenever I Run Into A Wall I Follow That Rule, And It Always Works Out. Even If It's Hard Going At The Time.

There's No Such Thing As Perfect Writing, Just Like There's No Such Thing As Perfect Despair.

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.

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.

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.

What Gave Money Its True Meaning Was Its Dark-night Namelessness, Its Breathtaking Interchangeability.

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

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.

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.

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.

If You Think About It, An Unfair Society Is A Society That Makes It Possible For You To Exploit Your Abilities To The Limit.

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.

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

I Always Feel Like I'm Struggling To Become Someone Else. Like I'm Trying To Find A New Place, Grab Hold Of A New Life, A New Personality. I Guess It's Part Of Growing Up; It's Also An Attempt To Reinvent Myself.

Please Remember: Things Are Not What They Seem.

Things Are Not What They Seem

You Mean Machines Are Like Humans?" I Shook My Head. "no, Not Like Humans. With Machines The Feeling Is, Well, More Finite. It Doesn't Go Any Further. With Humans It's Different. The Feeling Is Always Changing. Like If You Love Somebody, The Love Is Always Shifting Or Wavering. It's Always Questioning Or Inflating Or Disappearing Or Denying Or Hurting. And The Thing Is, You Can't Do Anything About It, You Can't Control It. With My Subaru, It's Not So Complicated.

You Are Entering A Phase Of Your Life In Which Many Different Things Will Occur...bad Things That Seem Good At First And Good Things That Seem Bad At First.

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

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

We Can, If We So Choose, Wander Aimlessly Over The Continent Of The Arbitrary. Rootless As Some Winged Seed Blown About On A Serendipitous Spring Breeze.

In A Place Far Away From Anyone Or Anywhere, I Drifted Off For A Moment.

Among The Many Values In Life, I Appreciate Freedom Most.

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

The Pillow Smells Like The Sunlight, A Precious Smell.

Is It Against The Law For Me To Know It?

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.

People Sometimes Sneer At Those Who Run Every Day, Claiming They'll Go To Any Length To Live Longer. But Don't Think That's The Reason Most People Run. Most Runners Run Not Because They Want To Live Longer, But Because They Want To Live Life To The Fullest.

To Sleep With A Woman: It Can Seem Of The Utmost Importance In Your Mind, Or Then Again It Can Seem Like Nothing Much At All. Which Only Goes To Say That There's Sex As Therapy (self-therapy, That Is) And There's Sex As Pastime.

The Unwaking World Was As Hushed As A Deep Forest.

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

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?

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.

Most Near-future Fictions Are Boring. It's Always Dark And Always Raining, And People Are So Unhappy.

I'm Not A Fast Reader. I Like To Linger Over Each Sentence, Enjoying The Style. If I Don't Enjoy The Writing, I Stop.

I Just Feel Pain. A Lot Of Pain. I Thought I Could Imagine How Much This Would Hurt But I Was Wrong.

Human Beings Are Ultimately Nothing But Carriers-passageways- For Genes. They Ride Us Into The Ground Like Racehorses From Generation To Generation. Genes Don't Think About What Constitutes Good Or Evil. They Don't Care Whether We Are Happy Or Unhappy. We're Just Means To An End For Them. The Only Thing They Think About Is What Is Most Efficient For Them.

To Be Able To Grasp Something Of Value, Sometimes You Have To Perform Seemingly Inefficient Acts.

I Said Nothing For A Time, Just Ran My Fingertips Along The Edge Of The Human-shaped Emptiness That Had Been Left Inside Me.

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.

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.

Tell Me, Doctor, Are You Afraid Of Death?" "i Guess It Depends On How You Die.

Afraid Of Death

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

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.

I Wonder How It Turns Out That We All Lead Such Different Lives. Take You And Your Sister, For Example. You're Born To The Same Parents, You Grow Up In The Same Household, You're Both Girls. How Do You End Up With Such Wildly Different Personalities?...one Puts On A Bikini Like Little Semaphore Flags And Lies By The Pool Looking Sexy, And The Other Puts On Her School Bathing Suit And Swims Her Heart Out Like A Dolphin.

What I Saw Wasn't A Ghost. It Was Simply--myself. I Can Never Forget How Terrified I Was That Night, And Whenever I Remember It, This Thought Always Springs To Mind: That The Most Frightening Thing In The World Is Our Own Self. What Do You Think?

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.

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

If A Person Remains Tense For A Long Time He Might Not Notice It Himself, But It’s Like His Nerves Are A Piece Of Rubber That Has Been Stretched Out. It’s Hard To Go Back To The Original Shape.

Exhaustion Pays No Mind To Age Or Beauty. Like Rain And Earthquakes And Hail And Floods.

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.

Whoa!" He Says With A Smile. The Wrinkles At The Corners Of His Eyes Deepen. "chicken Salad A La George Orwell!

Sometimes I Feel Like A Caretaker Of A Museum -- A Huge, Empty Museum Where No One Ever Comes, And I'm Watching Over It For No One But Myself.

Trending Author

Errico Malatesta

Kathryn Minshew

Category