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Those Five Fingers And That Palm Were Like A Display Case Crammed Full Of Everything I Wanted To Know--and Everything I Had To Know. By Taking My Hand, She Showed Me What These Things Were. That Within The Real World, A Place Like This Existed. In The Space Of Those Ten Seconds I Became I Tiny Bird, Fluttering In The Air, The Wind Rushing By. From High In The Sky I Could See A Scene Far Away. It Was So Far Off I Couldn't Make It Out Clearly, Yet Something Was There, And I Knew That Someday I Would Travel To That Place.

-Haruki Murakami

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Those Five Fingers And

Haruki Murakami

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Those Five Fingers And That Palm Were Like A Display Case Crammed Full Of Everything I Wanted To Know--and Everything I Had To Know. By Taking My Hand, She Showed Me What These Things Were. That Within The Real World, A Place Like This Existed. In The Space Of Those Ten Seconds I Became I Tiny Bird, Fluttering In The Air, The Wind Rushing By. From High In The Sky I Could See A Scene Far Away. It Was So Far Off I Couldn't Make It Out Clearly, Yet Something Was There, And I Knew That Someday I Would Travel To That Place.

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To Know One’s Own State Is Not A Simple Matter. One Cannot Look Directly At One’s Own Face With One’s Own Eyes, For Example. One Has No Choice But To Look At One’s Reflection In The Mirror. Through Experience, We Come To Believe That The Image Is Correct, But That Is All.

I'm The Kind Of Person Who Has To Totally Commit To Whatever I Do.

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.

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.

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.

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

Pain Is Inevitable. Suffering Is Optional.

I Was Confident That I Was A Special Person. But Time Slowly Chips Away At Life. People Don't Just Die When Their Time Comes. They Gradually Die Away, From The Inside. And Finally The Day Comes When You Have To Settle Accounts. Nobody Can Escape It. People Have To Pay The Price For What They've Received. I Have Only Just Learned That Truth.

Time Flows In A Strange Way On Sundays.

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

If You're Going To While Away The Years, It's Far Better To Live Them With Clear Goals And Fully Alive Then In A Fog, And I Believe #‎ Running Helps You To Do That. Exerting Yourself To The Fullest Within Your Individual Limits: That's The Essence Of Running, And A Metaphor For Life.

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

Once Upon A Time

Writing Is Fun - At Least Mostly. I Write For Four Hours Every Day. After That I Go Running. As A Rule, 10 Kilometers (6.2 Miles). That's Easy To Manage.

Pulled Into My Convenient Neighborhood Fast Food Restaurant. I Ordered Shrimp Salad, Onion Rings, And A Beer. The Shrimp Were Straight Out Of The Freezer, The Onion Rings Soggy. Looking Around The Place, Though, I Failed To Spot A Single Customer Banging On A Tray Or Complaining To A Waitress. So I Shut Up And Finished My Food. Expect Nothing, Get Nothing.

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

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

You've Already Decided What You're Going To Do, And All That's Left Is To Set The Wheels In Motion. I Mean, It's Your Life. Basically, You Gotta Go With What You Think Is Right.

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

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.

In Japan, The Writers Have Made Up A Literary Community, A Circle, A Society. I Think 90 Percent Of Japan's Writers Live In Tokyo. Naturally, They Make A Community. There Are Groups And Customs, And So They Are Tied Up In A Way.

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

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

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?

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

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.

The Fresh Smell Of Coffee Soon Wafted Through The Apartment, The Smell That Separates Night From Day.

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.

Hatred Is Like A Long, Dark Shadow. Not Even The Person It Falls Upon Knows Where It Comes From, In Most Cases. It Is Like A Two-edged Sword. When You Cut The Other Person, You Cut Yourself. The More Violently You Hack At The Other Person, The More Violently You Hack At Yourself. It Can Often Be Fatal. But It Is Not Easy To Dispose Of. Please Be Careful, Mr.okada. It Is Very Dangerous. Once It Has Taken Root In Your Heart, Hatred Is The Most Difficult Think In The World To Shake Off.

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

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

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

Sometimes Taking Time Is Actually A Shortcut.

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

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

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

It Is However, Difficult To Make Your Narratives Relative By Yourself. A Novelists' Work Is To Provide Models To Make Your Narratives Relative. If You Read My Novels Then You May Feel, "i Have The Same Experience As This Narrative", Or "i Have The Same Idea As This Novel". It Means That Your Narrative And Mine Sympathize, Concord And Resonate Together.

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.

When You're Young, You Think You Can Handle Anything. By The Time You Find Out Otherwise, It's Already Too Late. You Got A Stocking Wrapped Around Your Neck.

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.

When Microorganisms Die, They Make Oil; When Huge Timbers Fall, They Make Coal. But Everything Here Was Pure, Unadulterated Rubbish That Didn't Make Anything. Where Does A Busted Videodeck Get You?

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

So Many Dreams, So Many Disappointments, So Many Promises. And In The End, They All Just Vanish.

It's My Motto For Life. 'walk Slowly; Drink Lots Of Water.

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

It Was Spring Break, So The Theater Was Always Packed With High Schools Students. It Was An Animal House. I Wanted To Burn The Place Down.

Maybe She Thought The Garbage And Rocks In Your Head Were Interesting. But Finally, Garbage Is Garbage And Rocks Are Rocks.

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

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

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.

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.

I Am A Flawed Human Being - A Far More Flawed Human Being Than You Realize.

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.

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

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

Don't Pointless Things Have A Place, Too, In This Far-from-perfect World? Remove Everything Pointless From An Imperfect Life, And It'd Lose Even Its Imperfection.

Pointless Things

What's Nurtured Slowly Grows Well.

Of Course Life Frightens Me Sometimes. I Don't Happen To Take That As The Premise For Everything Else Though. I'm Going To Give It Hundred Percent And Go As Far As I Can. I'll Take What I Want And Leave What I Don't Want. That's How I Intend To Live My Life, And It Things Go Bad, I'll Stop And Reconsider At That Point. If You Think About It, An Unfair Society Is A Society That Makes It Possible For You To Exploit Your Abilities To The Limit.

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.

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.

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

Will You Wait For Me Forever?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I Was Dying. Like All The Other People Who Live In This World.

I Can't Build A Simple Shelf. I Have No Idea How To Change An Oil Filter On A Car. I Can't Even Stick A Stamp On An Envelope Straight. And I'm Always Dialling The Wrong Number. But I Have Come Up With A Few Original Cocktails That People Seem To Like.

It Was As If I Were Writing Letters To Hold Together The Pieces Of My Crumbling Life.

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.

Inspirational Life

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

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

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.

Reality Was Utterly Coolheaded And Utterly Lonely.

Where The Road Sloped Upward Beyond The Trees, I Sat And Looked Toward The Building Where Naoko Lived. It Was Easy To Tell Which Room Was Hers. All I Had To Do Was Find The One Window Toward The Back Where A Faint Light Trembled. I Focused On That Point Of Light For A Long, Long Time. It Made Me Think Of Something Like The Final Throb Of A Soul's Dying Embers. I Wanted To Cup My Hands Over What Was Left And Keep It Alive. I Went On Watching The Way Jay Gatsby Watched That Tiny Light On The Opposite Shore Night After Night.

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.

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

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

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

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

I'm Not Trying To Imply I Can Keep Up This Silent, Isolated Facade All The Time. Sometimes The Wall I've Erected Around Me Comes Crumbling Down. It Doesn't Happen Very Often, But Sometimes, Before I Even Realize What's Going On, There I Am--naked And Defenseless And Totally Confused. At Times Like That I Always Feel An Omen Calling Out To Me, Like A Dark, Omnipresent Pool Of Water. ~page 10

But If You Knew You Might Not Be Able To See It Again Tomorrow, Everything Would Suddenly Become Special And Precious, Wouldn’t It?

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

If You're In Pitch Blackness, All You Can Do Is Sit Tight Until Your Eyes Get Used To The Dark.

I Saw That She Was Crying. Before I Knew It, I Was Kissing Her. Others On The Platform Were Staring At Us, But I Didn't Care About Such Things Anymore. We Were Alive, She And I. And All We Had To Think About Was Continuing To Live.

Losing You Is Most Difficult For Me, But The Nature Of My Love For You Is What Matters. If It Distorts Into Half-truth, Then Perhaps It Is Better Not To Love You. I Must Keep My Mind But Loose You.

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?

Death Leaves Cans Of Shaving Cream Half-used.

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

It's Basically Impossible For Everybody's Justice To Prevail Or Everybody's Happiness To Triumph, So Chaos Takes Over.

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

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

My Biggest Faults Is That The Faults I Was Born With Grow Bigger Each Year. It's Like I Was Raising Chickens Inside Me. The Chickens Lay Eggs And The Eggs Hatch Into Other Chickens, Which Then Lay Eggs. Is This Any Way To Live A Life? What With All These Faults I've Got Going, I Have To Wonder. Sure, I Get By. But In The End, That's Not The Question, Is It?

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.

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.

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

I Feel Like I've Swallowed A Cloudy Sky

It Was A Narrow World, A World That Was Standing Still. But The Narrower It Became, The More It Betook Of Stillness, The More This World That Enveloped Me Seemed To Overflow With Things And People That Could Only Be Called Strange. They Had Been There All The While, It Seemed, Waiting In The Shadows For Me To Stop Moving. And Every Time The Wind-up Bird Came To My Yard To Wind Its Spring, The World Descendedmore Deeply Into Chaos.

The Best Musicians Transpose Consciousness Into Sound; Painters Do The Same For Color And Shape.

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.

People With Dark Souls Have Nothing But Dark Dreams. People With Really Dark Souls Do Nothing But Dream.

Become Like A Sheet Of Blotting Paper And Soak It All In. Later On You Can Figure Out What To Keep And What To Unload.

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.

Any Explanation Or Logic That Explains Everything So Easily Has A Hidden Trap In It. I'm Speaking From Experience. Somebody Once Said If It's Something A Single Book Can Explain, It's Not Worth Having Explained. What I Mean Is Don't Leap To Any Conclusions.

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.

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.

It's A Terrible Thing When A Person Dies, Whatever The Circumstances. A Hole Opens Up In The World, And We Need To Pay The Proper Respects. If We Don't, The Hole Will Never Be Filled In Again.

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

What You See With Your Eyes Is Not Necessarily Real.

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.

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.

I'm Not Going To Get Involved In A Debate With You. Just Remember This: The Gods Give, And The Gods Take Away. Even If You Are Not Aware Of Having Been Granted What You Posses, The Gods Remember What They Gave You. They Don't Forget A Thing. You Should Use The Abilities You Have Been Granted With The Utmost Care.

Sometimes When I Think Of Life, I Feel Like A Piece Of Driftwood Washed Up On Shore.

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.

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.

If You Try To Use Your Head To Think About Things, People Don't Want To Have Anything To Do With You

I'm Not So Weird To Me.

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.

If You Do Anything Out Of The Ordinary, You Can Be Sure Someone, Somewhere, Will Get Upset.

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

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

The Little Things Are Important, Mr. Wind-up Bird.

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.

Please Remember: Things Are Not What They Seem.

Things Are Not What They Seem

No Matter How Much Suffering You Went Through, You Never Wanted To Let Go Of Those Memories.

It Is Not That The Meaning Cannot Be Explained. But There Are Certain Meanings That Are Lost Forever The Moment They Are Explained In Words.

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.

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

A Gentleman Is Someone Who Does Not What He Wants To Do, But What He Should Do.

I Don't Know A Whole Lot About Symbolism. There Seems To Me To Be A Potential Danger In Symbolism. I Feel More Comfortable With Metaphors And Similes.

[...] Shimamoto Had Her Own Little World Within Her. A World That Was For Her Alone, One I Could Not Enter.

Whenever I Meet People For The First Time, I Get Them To Talk For Ten Minutes. Then I Size Them Up From The Exact Opposite Perspective Of All They’ve Told Me. Do You Think That’s Crazy? “no,” I Said, Shaking My Head, “i’d Guess Your Method Works Quite Well.

And When You Come Back To Japan Next Summer, Let's Have That Date Or Whatever You Want To Call It. We Can Go To The Zoo Or The Botanical Garden Or The Aquarium, And Then We'll Have The Most Politically Correct And Scrumptious Omelets We Can Find.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

These Days I Just Can't Seem To Say What I Mean [...]. I Just Can't. Every Time I Try To Say Something, It Misses The Point. Either That Or I End Up Saying The Opposite Of What I Mean. The More I Try To Get It Right The More Mixed Up It Gets. Sometimes I Can't Even Remember What I Was Trying To Say In The First Place. It's Like My Body's Split In Two And One Of Me Is Chasing The Other Me Around A Big Pillar. We're Running Circles Around It. The Other Me Has The Right Words, But I Can Never Catch Her.

Why Do I Act Like This, Agreeing When I Really Disagree, Letting People Force Me To Do Things I Don't Want To Do?

So This Was How Secrets Got Started, I Thought To Myself. People Constructed Them Little By Little. I Had Not Consciously Intended To Keep May Kasahara A Secret From Kumiko. My Relationship With Her Was Not That Big A Deal: Whether I Mentioned It Or Not Was Of No Consequence. Once It Had Flown Down A Certain Delicate Channel, However, It Had Become Cloaked In The Opacity Of Secretiveness, Whatever My Original Intention Had Have Been.

A Friend To Kill Time Is A Friend Sublime.

Life Might Just Be An Absurd, Even Crude, Chain Of Events And Nothing More.

Life Is A Lot More Fragile Than We Think. So You Should Treat Others In A Way That Leaves No Regrets. Fairly, And If Possible, Sincerely.

I 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.

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.

Nights Without Work I Spend With Whisky And Books.

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

Our Memory Is Made Up Of Our Individual Memories And Our Collective Memories. The Two Are Intimately Linked. And History Is Our Collective Memory. If Our Collective Memory Is Taken From Us - Is Rewritten - We Lose The Ability To Sustain Our True Selves.

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.

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

Like It Or Not, It's The Society We Live In. Even The Standard Of Right And Wrong Has Been Subdivided, Made Sophisticated. Within Good, There's Fashionable Good And Unfashionable Good, And Ditto For Bad. Within Fashionable Good, There's Formal And Then There's Casual; There's Hip, There's Cool, There's Trendy, There's Snobbish. Mix 'n' Match.

As We Go Through Life We Gradually Discover Who We Are, But The More We Discover, The More We Lose Ourselves.

That’s What Love’s All About. You’re The Only 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.

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.

A Man Is Like A Two-story House. The First Floor Is Equipped With An Entrance And A Living Room. On The Second Floor Is Every Family Member's Room. They Enjoy Listening To Music And Reading Books. On The First Underground Floor Is The Ruin Of People's Memories. The Room Filled With Darkness Is The Second Underground Floor.

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

In The World We Live In, What We Know And What We Don't Know Are Like Siamese Twins, Inseparable, Existing In A State Of Confusion.

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.

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!

A Person's Last Moments Are An Important Thing. You Can't Choose How You're Born But You Can Choose How You Die.

Chance Encounters Are What Keep Us Going.

"i Believe You," She Whispers After A Moment. "please Find My Mind."

Some People Think Literature Is High Culture And That It Should Only Have A Small Readership. I Don't Think So... I Have To Compete With Popular Culture, Including Tv, Magazines, Movies And Video Games.

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

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

Well, Think Of What I’m Doing To You Right Now. For Me I’m The Self, And You’re The Object. For You, Of Course, It’s The Exact Opposite—you’re The Self To You And I’m The Object. And By Exchanging Self And Object, We Can Project Ourselves Onto The Other And Gain Self-consciousness. Volitionally.” “i Still Don’t Get It, But It Sure Feels Good.” “that’s The Whole Idea,” The Girl Said.

It Occurred To Me What A Simple Thing Reality Is, How Easy It Is To Make It Work. It's Just Reality. Just Housework. Just A Home. Like Running A Simple Machine. Once You Learn To Run It, It's Just A Matter Of Repetition. You Push This Button And Pull That Lever. You Adjust A Gauge, Put On The Lid, Set The Timer. The Same Thing, Over And Over.

I’m The Kind Of Person Who Likes To Be By Himself. To Put A Finer Point On It, I’m The Type Of Person Who Doesn’t Find It Painful To Be Alone. I Find Spending An Hour Or Two Every Day Running Alone, Not Speaking To Anyone, As Well As Four Or Five Hours Alone At My Desk, To Be Neither Difficult Nor Boring. I’ve Had This Tendency Ever Since I Was Young, When, Given A Choice, I Much Preferred Reading Books On My Own Or Concentrating On Listening To Music Over Being With Someone Else. I Could Always Think Of Things To Do By Myself.

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.

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

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

If I Used Being Busy As An Excuse Not To Run, I'd Never Run Again. I Have Only A Few Reasons To Keep On Running, And A Truckload Of Them To Quit.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Pure Present Is An Ungraspable Advance Of The Past Devouring The Future. In Truth, All Sensation Is Already Memory.

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?

Life: I'll Never Understand It.

One Of These Days They'll Be Making A Film Where The Whole Human Race Gets Wiped Out In A Nuclear War, But Everything Works Out In The End.

Most Human Activities Are Predicated On The Assumption That Life Goes On. If You Take That Premise Away, What Is There Left?

Her Partially Open Lips Now Opened Wide, And Her Soft, Fragrant Tongue Entered His Mouth, Where It Began A Relentless Search For Unformed Words, For A Secret Code Engraved There. Tengo's Own Tongue Responded Unconsciously To This Movement And Soon Their Tongues Were Like Two Young Snakes In A Spring Meadow, Newly Wakened From Their Hibernation And Hungrily Intertwining, Each Led On By The Other's Scent.

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.

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

Can'ttrustpeople. Won'tdoanygood. They'llkillyoueverytime. They'llkilleachother. They'llkilleveryone.

If You Never Noticed, It Never Happened.

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

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.

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

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

Everything In Life Is A Metaphor.

I Think Of Myself As More The Non-turn-on Type. So When I Do Get Turned On, I Don’t Trust It, I Have To Investigate The Source.

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