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Was It Aristotle Who Said The Human Soul Is Composed Of Reason, Will, And Desire?” “no, That Was Plato. Aristotle And Plato Were As Different As Mel Tormé And Bing Crosby. In Any Case, Things Were A Lot Simpler In The Old Days,” Komatsu Said. “wouldn’t It Be Fun To Imagine Reason, Will, And Desire Engaged In A Fierce Debate Around A Table?

-Haruki Murakami

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Was It Aristotle Who

Haruki Murakami

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Was It Aristotle Who Said The Human Soul Is Composed Of Reason, Will, And Desire?” “no, That Was Plato. Aristotle And Plato Were As Different As Mel Tormé And Bing Crosby. In Any Case, Things Were A Lot Simpler In The Old Days,” Komatsu Said. “wouldn’t It Be Fun To Imagine Reason, Will, And Desire Engaged In A Fierce Debate Around A Table?

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My Father Always Told Me: 'give Somebody A Hand And He'll Take An Arm.

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.

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

Your Work Should Be An Act Of Love, Not A Marriage Of Convenience.

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

You Know What It’s Like When You’re Trying To Fall Asleep And It Only Makes You More Wide Awake?

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?

People Have Their Own Reasons For Dying. It Might Look Simple, But It Never Is. It's Just Like A Rock. What's Above Ground Is Only A Small Part Of It. But If You Start Pulling, It Keeps Coming And Coming. The Human Mind Dwells Deep In Darkness. Only The Person Himself Knows The Real Reason, And Maybe Not Even Then.

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.

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

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

What We See Before Us Is Just One Tiny Part Of The World. We Get In The Habit Of Thinking, This Is The World, But That's Not True At All. The Real World Is A Much Darker And Deeper Place Than This, And Much Of It Is Occupied By Jellyfish And Things.

One Last Word Of Advice, Though, Mr. Okada, Though You May Not Want To Hear This. There Are Things In This World It Is Better Not To Know About. Of Course, Those Are The Very Things That People Most Want To Know About. It's Strange.

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

Confidence; As A Teenager? Because I Knew What I Loved. I Loved To Read; I Loved To Listen To Music; And I Love Cats. Those Three Things. So, Even Though I Was An Only Kid, I Could Be Happy Because I Knew What I Loved.

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.

Once A Guy Starts Using A Wig, He Has To Keep Using One. It's, Like, His Fate. That's Why Wig Makers Make Such Huge Profits. I Hate To Say It, But They're Like Drug Dealers.

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.

Before I Became A Writer, I Was Running A Jazz Bar In The Center Of Tokyo, Which Means That I Worked In Filthy Air All The Time Late Into The Night. I Was Very Excited When I Started Making A Living Out Of My Writing, And I Decided, 'i Will Live In Nothing But An Absolutely Healthy Way.'

Don't Tell Me Anymore. You Should Have Your Dream, As The Old Woman Told You To. I Understand How You Feel, But If You Put Those Feelings Into Words They Will Turn Into Lies. (from Thailand)

I Spent Thirty-three Years In Another Man's Shadow. I Went Everywhere He Went, I Helped Him With Everything He Did. I Was In A Sense A Part Of Him. When You Live Like That For A Long Time, You Gradually Lose Track Of What It Is You Yourself Really Want Out Of Life

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.

It's Like A Kid Standing At The Window Watching The Rain.

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

Imperfect World

Writers Have To Keep On Writing If They Want To Mature, Like Caterpillars Endlessly Chewing On Leaves.

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

There Are Some Things About Myself I Can’t Explain To Anyone. There Are Some Things I Don’t Understand At All. I Can’t Tell What I Think About Things Or What I’m After. I Don’t Know What My Strengths Are Or What I’m Supposed To Do About Them. But If I Start Thinking About These Things In Too Much Detail The Whole Thing Gets Scary. And If I Get Scared I Can Only Think About Myself. I Become Really Self-centered, And Without Meaning To, I Hurt People. So I’m Not Such A Wonderful Human Being.

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.

Maybe Working On The Little Things As Dutifully And Honestly As We Can Is How We Stay Sane When The World Is Falling Apart.

So What’s Wrong If There Happens To Be One Guy In The World Who Enjoys Trying To Understand You?

It's The Same With Menus And Men And Just About Anything Else: We Think We're Choosing Things For Ourselves, But In Fact We May Not Be Choosing Anything. It Could Be That Everthing's Being Decided In Advance And We Pretend We're Making Choices. Free Will May Be An Illusion. I Often Think That.

If I Choose To Write About Sheep, It's Just Because I Happened To Write About Sheep. There Is No Deep Significance.

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.

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

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

They Were Each Like A Mirror For The Other, Reflecting The Changes In Themselves.

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

She 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.

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

I Don't Go Out Of My Way To Make Friends, That's All.

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

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

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.

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

Reality's Just The Accumulation Of Ominous Prophecies Come To Life. All You Have To Do Is Open A Newspaper On Any Given Day To Weigh The Good News Versus The Bad News, And You'll See What I Mean.

I Began Running On An Everyday Basis After I Became A Writer. As Being A Writer Requires Sitting At A Desk For Hours A Day, Without Getting Some Exercise You'd Quickly Get Out Of Shape And Gain Weight, I Figured.

I Don't Care What You Do To Me, But I Don't Want You To Hurt Me. I've Had Enough Hurt Already In My Life. More Than Enough. Now I Want To Be Happy.

There Are Many Things We Only See Clearly In Retrospect.

Be Fearless, Be Brave, Be Bold, Love Yourself

But Didn't You Say You Were Satisfied With Your Life?" "word Games," I Dismissed. "every Army Needs A Flag.

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Kids' Hearts Are Malleable, But Once They Gel It's Hard To Get Them Back The Way They Were.

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

If You Keep On Writing For Three Years, Every Day, You Should Be Strong. Of Course, You Have To Be Strong Mentally, Also. But In The First Place, You Have To Be Strong Physically. That Is A Very Important Thing. Physically And Mentally You Have To Be Strong.

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 A Short One-paragraph Item In The Morning Edition.

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

If I Stayed Here, Something Inside Me Would Be Lost Forever—something I Couldn't Afford To Lose. It Was Like A Vague Dream, A Burning, Unfulfilled Desire. The Kind Of Dream People Have Only When They're Seventeen.

What Happens When People Open Their Hearts?"... "they Get Better.

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.

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

It's Just Like Sex; When [a Book Is] Finished, It's Finished.

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.

Sometimes I Think I've Got This Hard Kernel In My Heart, And Nothing Much Can Get Inside It. I Doubt If I Can Really Love Anybody.

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

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

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 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 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.

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 For A Good Twelve-hour Sleep, I Told Myself. Twelve Solid Hours. Let Birds Sing, Let People Go To Work. Somewhere Out There, A Volcano Might Blow, Israeli Commandos Might Decimate A Palestinian Village. I Couldn't Stop It. I Was Going To Sleep.

A State Of Chronic Powerlessness Eats Away At A Person

Where There Is Light, There Must Be Shadow, Where There Is Shadow There Must Be Light. There Is No Shadow Without Light And No Light Without Shadow.... We Do Not Know If The So-called Little People Are Good Or Evil. This Is, In A Sense, Something That Surpasses Our Understanding And Our Definitions. We Have Lived With Them Since Long, Long Ago-- From A Time Before Good And Evil Even Existed, When People's Minds Were Still Benighted.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

She Was Hearing Everything That Went On In His Heart, Like A Person Who Can Trace A Map With His Fingertip And Conjure Up Vivid, Living Scenery.

Of Course You Keep Telling Yourself There's Something To Be Learned From Everything, And Growing Old Shouldn't Be That Hard. That's The General Drift.

Every One Of Us Is Losing Something Precious To Us. Lost Opportunities, Lost Possibilities, Feelings We Can Never Get Back Again. That’s Part Of What It Means To Be Alive.

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.

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

I'm An Average Person. Is Just That I Like Reading.

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.

In Terms Of Evolutionary History, It Was Only Yesterday That Men Learned To Walk Around On Two Legs And Get In Trouble Thinking Complicated Thoughts. So Don't Worry, You'll Burn Out.

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'.

Listening To The Music While Stretching Her Body Close To Its Limit, She Was Able To Attain A Mysterious Calm. She Was Simultaneously The Torturer And The Tortured, The Forcer And The Forced. This Sense Of Inner-directed Self-sufficiency Was What She Wanted Most Of All. It Gave Her Deep Solace.

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.

Adults Need More Complex Narratives. They Have Their Own Narratives. The Main Characters Are Themselves.

As Long As There's Such A Thing As Time, Everybody's Damaged In The End, Changed Into Something Else. It Always Happens, Sooner Or Later.

Having An Object That Symbolizes Freedom Might Make A Person Happier Than Actually Getting The Freedom It Represents.

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?

Most Of The Psychological Differences Between Men And Women Seem To Come From Differences In Their Reproductive System

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

My Face, My Self, What Would They Mean To Anybody? Just Another Stiff. So This Self Of Mine Passes Some Other's Self On The Street - What Do We Have To Say To Each Other? Hey There! Hi Ya!that's About It. Nobody Raises A Hand. No One Turns Around To Take Another Look.

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

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

It’s Pretty Thin, The Wall Separating Healthy Confidence And Unhealthy Pride.

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

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

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.

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 Have A Million Things To Talk To You About. All I Want In This World Is You. I Want To See You And Talk. I Want The Two Of Us To Begin Everything From The Beginning.

So This Was How Secrets Got Started, I Thought To Myself. People Constructed Them Little By Little.

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?

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

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.

Only Where There Is Disillusionment And Depression And Sorrow Does Happiness Arise; Without The Despair Of Loss, There Is No Hope.

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.

A Deserted Library In The Morning - There's Something About It That Really Gets To Me. All Possible Words And Ideas Are There, Resting Peacefully.

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

There Has To Be Pain. That's The Rule.

When I Open Them, Most Of The Books Have The Smell Of An Earlier Time Leaking Out Between The Pages - A Special Odor Of The Knowledge And Emotions That For Ages Have Been Calmly Resting Between The Covers. Breathing It In, I Glance Through A Few Pages Before Returning Each Book To Its Shelf.

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

Passing Moments

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

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

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.

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

What Do You Think? I'm Not A Starfish Or A Pepper Tree. I'm A Living, Breathing Human Being. Of Course I've Been In Love.

I Just Gave Them A Little Scare. A Touch Of Psychological Terror. As Joseph Conrad Once Wrote, True Terror Is The Kind That Men Feel Towards Their Imagination. (from Super-frog Saves Tokyo)

I'm Tired Of Living Unable To Love Anyone. I Don't Have A Single Friend - Not One. And, Worst Of All, I Can't Even Love Myself. Why Is That? Why Can't I Love Myself? It's Because I Can't Love Anyone Else. A Person Learns How To Love Himself Through The Simple Acts Of Loving And Being Loved By Someone Else. Do You Understand What I Am Saying? A Person Who Is Incapable Of Loving Another Cannot Properly Love Himself.

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

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.

That's Gotta Be One Of The Principles Behind Reality. Accepting Things That Are Hard To Comprehend, And Leaving Them That Way.

I Love Pop Culture -- The Rolling Stones, The Doors, David Lynch, Things Like That. That's Why I Said I Don't Like Elitism.

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.

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.

My Only Passions Were Books And Music. As You Might Guess, I Led A Lonely Life… Not That I Knew What I Wanted In Life - I Didn’t. I Loved Reading Novels To Distraction, But Didn’t Write Well Enough To Be A Novelist; Being An Editor Or A Critic Was Out, Too, Since My Tastes Ran To The Extremes. Novels Should Be For Pure Personal Enjoyment, I Decided, Not Part Of Your Work Or Study. That’s Why I Didn’t Study Literature

I Collect Records. And Cats. I Don't Have Any Cats Right Now. But If I'm Taking A Walk And I See A Cat, I'm Happy.

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

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.

What I Was Chasing In Circles Must Have Been The Tail Of The Darkness Inside Me.

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.

I Was In My House, Alone In The Living Room, Anxious About You, Watching The Flashes Of Lightning. And A Flash Of Lightning Lit Up This Truth For Me, Right In Front Of My Eye. That Night I Lost You, I Lost Something Inside Me. Or Perhaps Several Things. Something Central To My Existence, The Very Support For Who I Am As A Person

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

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.

Once You Let Yourself Grow Close To Someone, Cutting The Ties Could Be Painful.

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

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

Like You're Riding A Train At Night Across Some Vast Plain, And You Catch A Glimpse Of A Tiny Light In A Window Of A Farmhouse. In An Instant It's Sucked Back Into The Darkness Behind And Vanishes. But If You Close Your Eyes, That Point Of Light Stays With You, Just Barely For A Few Moments.

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.

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

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.

Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Always Only One Reality!

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.

George Orwell Is Half Journalist, Half Fiction Writer. I'm 100 Percent Fiction Writer... I Don't Want To Write Messages. I Want To Write Good Stories. I Think Of Myself As A Political Person, But I Don't State My Political Messages To Anybody.

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

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

Did You Ever See Anyone Shot By A Gun Without Bleeding?

In Any Case, Suffice It To Say I Enjoyed Hearing About Faraway Places. I Had Stocked Up A Whole Store Of These Places, Like A Bear Getting Ready For Hibernation. I'd Close My Eyes, And Streets Would Materialize, Rows Of Houses Take Shape. I Could Hear People's Voices, Feel The Gentle, Steady Rhythm Of Their Lives, Those People So Distant, Whom I'd Probably Never Know.

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.

For Some Reason All The Middle-aged Women He Knew Were Very Efficient.

I'm A Writer, Not A Professional Runner. It's Fun And It Helps Me Write. I Need Powerful Concentration.

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

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.

Once, When I Was Younger, I Thought I Could Be Someone Else. I'd Move To Casablanca, Open A Bar, And I'd Meet Ingrid Bergman. Or More Realistically - Whether Actually More Realistic Or Not - I'd Tune In On A Better Life, Something More Suited To My True Self. Toward That End, I Had To Undergo Training. I Read The Greening Of America, And I Saw Easy Rider Three Times. But Like A Boat With A Twisted Rudder, I Kept Coming Back To The Same Place. I Wasn't Anywhere. I Was Myself, Waiting On The Shore For Me To Return.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I Often Dream About The Dolphin Hotel.

Sometimes When I Look At You, I Feel I'm Gazing At A Distant Star. It's Dazzling, But The Light Is From Tens Of Thousands Of Years Ago. Maybe The Star Doesn't Even Exist Any More. Yet Sometimes That Light Seems More Real To Me Than Anything.

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

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

Have Books ‘happened’ To You? Unless Your Answer To That Question Is ‘yes,’ I’m Unsure How To Talk To You

It Was A Small Room With Dim Light Coming In The Window, Reminiscent Of Old Polish Films.

That's What The World Is , After All: An Endless Battle Of Contrasting Memories.

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.

I Have These Realistic Dreams And Snap Wide Awake In The Middle Of The Night. And For A While I Can't Work Out What's Real And What Isn't... That Kind Of Feeling. Do You Have Any Idea What I'm Saying?

He Does Not Exist Here, With Me, But Flesh That Does Not Exist Will Never Die, And Promises Unmade Are Never Broken.

It Is The Same With Anything - You Have To Learn Through Your Own Experience, Paying Your Own Way. You Can't Learn It From A Book.

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

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.

In This World, There Is No Absolute Good, No Absolute Evil," The Man Said. "good And Evil Are Not Fixed, Stable Entities, But Are Continually Trading Places. A Good May Be Transformed Into An Evil In The Next Second. And Vice Versa. Such Was The Way Of The World That Dostoevsky Depicted In The Brothers Karamazov. The Most Important Thing Is To Maintain The Balance Between The Constantly Moving Good And Evil. If You Lean Too Much In Either Direction, It Becomes Difficult To Maintain Actual Morals. Indeed, Balance Itself Is The Good.

You Said You're Going Far Away," Tamaru Said. "how Far Away Are We Talking About?" "it's A Distance That Can't Be Measured." "like The Distance That Separates One Person's Heart From Another's.

We're Both Looking At The Same Moon, In The Same World. We're Connected To Reality By The Same Line. All I Have To Do Is Quietly Draw It Towards Me.

To Be Able To Talk To Your Heart’s Content About A Book You Like With Someone Who Feels The Same Way About It Is One Of The Greatest Joys That Life Can Offer.

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

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

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

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.

Ever Since That Happened To Me, I Haven't Been Able To Give Myself To Anyone In This World.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Was It Aristotle Who Said The Human Soul Is Composed Of Reason, Will, And Desire?” “no, That Was Plato. Aristotle And Plato Were As Different As Mel Tormé And Bing Crosby. In Any Case, Things Were A Lot Simpler In The Old Days,” Komatsu Said. “wouldn’t It Be Fun To Imagine Reason, Will, And Desire Engaged In A Fierce Debate Around A Table?

I Tell Lies Sometimes. The Last Time I Lied Was A Year Ago. I Absolutely Detest Lying. You Could Say That Lying And Silence Are The Two Greatest Sins Of Present Day Society. Actually, I Lie A Lot, And I'm Always Clamming Up.

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.

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

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

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