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What Would Tomorrow Bring? I Wondered. Both Hands On The Wheel, I Closed My Eyes. I Didn’t Feel Like I Was In My Own Body; My Body Was Just A Lonely, Temporary Container I Happened To Be Borrowing. What Would Become Of Me Tomorrow I Did Not Know.

-Haruki Murakami

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What Would Tomorrow Bring?

Haruki Murakami

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What Would Tomorrow Bring? I Wondered. Both Hands On The Wheel, I Closed My Eyes. I Didn’t Feel Like I Was In My Own Body; My Body Was Just A Lonely, Temporary Container I Happened To Be Borrowing. What Would Become Of Me Tomorrow I Did Not Know.

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Math Is Like Water. It Has A Lot Of Difficult Theories, Of Course, But Its Basic Logic Is Very Simple. Just As Water Flows From High To Low Over The Shortest Possible Distance, Figures Can Only Flow In One Direction. You Just Have To Keep Your Eye On Them For The Route To Reveal Itself. That’s All It Takes. You Don’t Have To Do A Thing. Just Concentrate Your Attention And Keep Your Eyes Open, And The Figures Make Everything Clear To You. In This Whole, Wide World, The Only Thing That Treats Me So Kindly Is Math.

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.

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.

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.

Sheep Hurt My Father, And Through My Father, Sheep Have Also Hurt Me.

Everyone, Deep In Their Hearts, Is Waiting For The End Of The World To Come.

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

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

Don’t You See? You And He Might Never Cross Paths Again. Of Course, A Chance Meeting Could Occur, And I Hope It Happens. I Really Do, For Your Sake. But Realistically Speaking, You Have To See There’s A Huge Possibility You’ll Never Be Able To Meet Him Again. And Even If You Do Meet, He Might Already Be Married To Somebody Else. He Might Have Two Kids. Isn’t That So? And In That Case, You May Have To Live The Rest Of Your Life Alone, Never Being Joined With The One Person You Love In All The World. Don’t You Find That Scary?

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

I Contented Myself With Whiskey, For Medicinal Purposes. It Helped Numb My Various Aches And Pains. Not That The Alcohol Actually Reduced The Pain; It Just Gave The Pain A Life Of Its Own, Apart From Mine.

You're Not A Kid Any More. You Have The Right To Choose Your Own Life. You Can Start Again. If You Want A Cat, All You Have To Do Is Choose A Life In Which You Can Have A Cat. It's Simple. It's Your Right.

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.

When The Orbits Of These Two Satellites Of Ours Happened To Cross Paths, We Could Be Together. Maybe Even Open Our Hearts To Each Other. But That Was Only For The Briefest Moment. In The Next Instant We'd Be In Absolute Solitude. Until We Burned Up And Became Nothing.

Everything Just Blows Me Away.

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

Problem Is, Once I Sit At My Desk And Put All These Down On Paper. I Realize Something Vital Is Missing. It Doesn't Crystallize - No Crystals, Just Pebbles. And I'm Not Transported Anywhere.

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.

That's What We All Do: Endlessly Take The Long Way Around.

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

When You Are Used To The Kind Of Life -of Never Getting Anything You Want- You Stop Knowing What It Is You Want.

Exerting Yourself To The Limit Over And Over Again, That Is The Essence Of Running. Running Is Painful, But The Pain Doesn't Leave Me, I Can Take Care Of It. That Agrees With My Mentality.

I Dream. Sometimes I Think That’s The Only Right Thing To Do. To Dream, To Live In The World Of Dreams. But It Doesn’t Last Forever. Wakefulness Always Comes To Take Me Back.

Forgive Me For Stating The Obvious, But The World Is Made Up Of All Kinds Of People.

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.

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.

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

With Luck, It Might Even Snow For Us.

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.

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

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

Either I'm Funny Or The World's Funny. I Don't Know Which. The Bottle And Lid Don't Fit. It Could Be The Bottle's Fault Or The Lid's Fault. In Either Case, There's No Denying That The Fit Is Bad.

I Don't Know, There's Something About You. Say There's An Hourglass: The Sand's About To Run Out. Someone Like You Can Always Be Counted On To Turn The Thing Over.

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

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

Things May Look Different To You Than They Did Before. I've Had That Experience Myself. But Don't Let Appearances Fool You. There's Only One Reality.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But Why Should You Be Interested In Me?" Good Question. I Can’t Explain It Myself Right This Moment. But Maybe – Just Maybe – If We Start Getting Together And Talking, After A While Something Like Francis Lai’s Soundtrack Music Will Start Playing In The Background, And A Whole Slew Of Concrete Reasons Why I’m Interested In You Will Line Up Out Of Nowhere. With Luck, It Might Even Snow For Us.

Were The Stars Out When I Left The House Last Evening? All I Could Remember Was The Couple In The Skyline Listening To Duran Duran. Stars? Who Remembers Stars? Come To Think Of It, Had I Even Looked Up At The Sky Recently? Had The Stars Been Wiped Out Of The Sky Three Months Ago, I Wouldn’t Have Known.

If Writing Novels Is Like Planting A Forest, Then Writing Short Stories Is More Like Planting A Garden. The Two Processes Complement Each Other, Creating A Complete Landscape That I Treasure. The Green Foliage Of The Trees Casts A Pleasant Shade Over The Earth, And The Wind Rustles The Leaves, Which Are Sometimes Dyed A Brilliant Gold. Meanwhile, In The Garden, Buds Appear On The Flowers, And Colorful Petals Attract Bees And Butterflies, Reminding Us Of The Subtle Transition From One Season To The Next.

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.

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.

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

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Domestic Violence

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In This World, There Are Things You Can Only Do Alone, And Things You Can Only Do With Somebody Else. It's Important To Combine The Two In Just The Right Amount.

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

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

One Impossible Day, Of An Impossible Month, Of An Impossible Year.

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Until The Bitter End, The Emptiness Inside Her Was Hers Alone.

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When People Tell A Lie About Something, They Have To Make Up A Bunch Of Lies To Go With The First One. ‘mythomania’ Is The Word For It.

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Most Young People Were Getting Jobs In Big Companies, Becoming Company Men. I Wanted To Be Individual.

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.

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

If You Never Noticed, It Never Happened.

I Started Writing At The Kitchen Table After Midnight. It Took Ten Months To Finish That First Book; I Sent It To A Publisher And I Got Some Kind Of Prize, So It Was Like A Dream - I Was Surprised To Find It Happening.

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A State Of Chronic Powerlessness Eats Away At A Person

Sometimes We Don't Need Words. Rather, It's Words That Need Us.

It's Hard To Tell The Difference Between Sea And Sky, Between Voyager And Sea. Between Reality And The Workings Of The Heart.

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

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

You're Walking Through A Field All By Yourself One Day In Spring And This Sweet Little Bear Cub With Velvet Fur And Shiny Little Eyes Comes Walking Along. And He Says To You, 'hi, There, Little Lady. Want To Tumble With Me?' So You And The Bear Spend The Whole Day In Each Other's Arms, Tumbling Down This Clover-covered Hill. Nice, Huh?

Time Passes Slowly. Nobody Says A Word, Everyone Lost In Quiet Reading. One Person Sits At A Desk Jotting Down Notes, But The Rest Are Sitting There Silently, Not Moving, Totally Absorbed. Just Like Me.

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

It's A Question Of Attitude. If You Really Work At Something You Can Do It Up To A Point. If You Really Work At Being Happy You Can Do It Up To A Point. But Anything More Than That You Can't. Anything More Than That Is Luck.

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.

At Least He Never Walked.

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)

How Many Times Have You Said, 'this Is It. I've Finally Found My One True Love'? And How Many Times Has The Reality Turned Out Differently? Paperback Romances And Fairy Tales Promote An Ideal Of A First And Only Love, But Few Of Us Can Claim To Have Had Such Uncomplicated Good Fortune. For Most People, The Process Of Finding The Perfect Partner Is One Trial And Error: Breakups, Makeups, Missed Opportunities And Misunderstandings. Human Love Is A Fragile Creation, And Sometimes The Smallest Thing - The Wrong Choice Of Words Or A Single Clumsy Gesture - Can Make Love Shatter, Stall Or Fade Away.

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

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?

When You Fall In Love, The Natural Thing To Do Is Give Yourself To It.

Falling In Love

Falling For You

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

In Certain Areas Of My Life, I Actively Seek Out Solitude. Especially For Someone In My Line Of Work, Solitude Is, More Or Less, An Inevitable Circumstance. Sometimes, However, This Sense Of Isolation, Like Acid Spilling Out Of A Bottle, Can Unconsciously Eat Away At A Person's Heart And Dissolve It. You Could See It, Too, As A Kind Of Double-edged Sword. It Protects Me, But At The Same Time Steadily Cuts Away At Me From The Inside.

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

Things Can Be Seen Better In The Darkness," He Said, As If He Had Just Seen Into Her Mind. "but The Longer You Spend In The Dark, The Harder It Becomes To Return To The World Aboveground Where The Light Is

..finally He Was Just Another Ant, Working And Working Until He Died Without Meaning.

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.

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

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

There Was Just One Moon. That Familiar, Yellow, Solitary Moon. The Same Moon That Silently Floated Over Fields Of Pampas Grass, The Moon That Rose--a Gleaming, Round Saucer--over The Calm Surface Of Lakes, That Tranquilly Beamed Down On The Rooftops Of Fast-asleep Houses. The Same Moon That Brought The High Tide To Shore, That Softly Shone On The Fur Of Animals And Enveloped And Protected Travelers At Night. The Moon That, As A Crescent, Shaved Slivers From The Soul--or, As A New Moon, Silently Bathed The Earth In Its Own Loneliness. That Moon.

What We Needed Were Not Words And Promises But A Steady Accumulation Of Small Realities.

There Weren't Any Curtains In The Windows, And The Books That Didn't Fit Into The Bookshelf Lay Piled On The Floor Like A Bunch Of Intellectual Refugees.

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.

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

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

The Answer Is Dreams. Dreaming On And On. Entering The World Of Dreams And Never Coming Out. Living In Dreams For The Rest Of Time.

Irrepressible Curiosity Vied With An Instinctive Fear.

Artists Are Those Who Can Evade The Verbose.

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

At Times Like This, Adults Need A Drink

I Am 55 Years Old Now. It Takes Three Years To Write One Book. I Don't Know How Many Books I Will Be Able To Write Before I Die. It Is Like A Countdown. So With Each Book I Am Praying - Please Let Me Live Until I Am Finished.

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

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

Generally, People Who Are Good At Writing Letters Have No Need To Write Letters. They've Got Plenty Of Life To Lead Inside Their Own Context.

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.

Closing Your Eyes Isn't Going To Change Anything. Nothing's Going To Disappear Just Because You Can't See What's Going On. In Fact, Things Will Even Be Worse The Next Time You Open Your Eyes. That's The Kind Of World We Live In. Keep Your Eyes Wide Open. Only A Coward Closes His Eyes. Closing Your Eyes And Plugging Up Your Ears Won't Make Time Stand Still.

I Have Come To Think That Life Is A Far More Limited Thing Than Those In The Midst Of Its Maelstorm Realize. That Light Shines Into The Act Of Life For Only The Briefest Moment - Perhaps Only A Matter Of Seconds. Once It Is Gone And Failed To Grasp Its Offered Revelation, There Is No Second Chance. One May Have To Live The Rest Of One's Life In Hopeless Depth Of Loneliness And Remorse. In That Twilight World, One Can No Longer Look Forward To Anything. All That Such A Person Holds In His Hands Is The Withered Corpse Of What Should Have Been.

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

What You See With Your Eyes Is Not Necessarily Real.

Hatsumi Had A Pretty Good Idea That Nagasawa Was Sleeping Around, But She Never Complained To Him. She Was Seriously In Love With Him, But She Never Made Demands. 'i Don't Deserve A Girl Like Hatsumi,' Nagasawa Once Said To Me. I Had To Agree With Him.

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.

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

Huge Organizations And Me Don't Get Along. They're Too Inflexible, Waste Too Much Time, And Have Too Many Stupid People.

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

I Miss You Terribly Sometimes, But In General I Go On Living With All The Energy I Can Muster. Just As You Take Care Of The Birds And The Fields Every Morning, Every Morning I Wind My Own Spring. I Give It Some 36 Good Twists By The Time I've Got Up, Brushed My Teeth, Shaved, Eaten Breakfast, Changed My Clothes, Left The Dorm, And Arrived At The University. I Tell Myself, "ok, Let's Make This Day Another Good One." I Hadn't Noticed Before, But They Tell Me I Talk To Myself A Lot These Days. Probably Mumbling To Myself While I Wind My Spring.

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.

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

It's Just Like Yeats Said. In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. Flip This Around And You Could Say That Where There's No Power To Imagine, No Responsibility Can Arise.

And Once The Storm Is Over, You Won’t Remember How You Made It Through, How You Managed To Survive. You Won’t Even Be Sure, Whether The Storm Is Really Over. But One Thing Is Certain. 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've Translated A Lot Of American Literature Into Japanese, And I Think That What Makes A Good Translator Is, Above All, A Feel For Language And Also A Great Affection For The Work You're Translating. If One Of Those Elements Is Missing The Translation Won't Be Worth Much.

In Real Life Things Don’t Go So Smoothly. At Certain Points In Our Lives, When We Really Need A Clear-cut Solution, The Person Who Knocks At Our Door Is, More Likely Than Not, A Messenger Bearing Bad News.

No Matter How Much Time Passes, No Matter What Takes Place In The Interim, There Are Some Things We Can Never Assign To Oblivion, Memories We Can Never Rub Away.

The Whole Terrible Fight Occured In The Area Of Imagination. That Is The Precise Location Of Our Battlefield. It Is There, That We Experience Our Victories And Defeats.

Victory And Defeat

Nature Is Actually Unnatural

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.

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 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.

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

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.

Another Person's Life Is That Person's Life. You Can't Take Responsibility.

Taking Responsibility

I Hate Requests. They Make Me Feel Unhappy. It's Like When I Take A Book Out Of The Library. As Soon As I Start To Read It, All I Can Think About Is When I'll Finish It.

How Can The Mind Be So Imperfect?" She Says With A Smile. I Look At My Hands. Bathed In The Moonlight, They Seem Like Statues, Proportioned To No Purpose. "it May Well Be Imperfect," I Say, "but It Leaves Traces. And We Can Follow Those Traces, Like Footsteps In The Snow." "where Do The Lead?" "to Oneself," I Answer. "that's Where The Mind Is. Without The Mind, Nothing Leads Anywhere." I Look Up. The Winter Moon Is Brilliant, Over The Town, Above The Wall. "not One Thing Is Your Fault," I Comfort Her.

So I'm Not Crazy After All! I Thought It Looked Good Myself Once I Cut It All Off. Not One Guy Likes It, Though. They All Tell Me I Look Like A First Grader Or A Concentration Camp Survivor. What's This Thing That Guys Have For Girls With Long Hair? Fascists, The Whole Bunch Of Them! Why Do Guys All Think Girls With Long Hair Are The Classiest, The Sweetest, The Most Feminine? I Mean, I Myself Know At Least Two Hundred And Fifty Unclassy Girls With Long Hair. Really.

Someone Once Said That Nothing Costs More And Yields Less Benefit Than Revenge,” Aomame Said. “winston Churchill. As I Recall It, Though, He Was Making Excuses For The British Empire’s Budget Deficits. It Has No Moral Significance.

If You Want Everything To Be Nice And Straight All The Time, Then Go Live In A World Made With A Triungular Ruler.

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

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

Anyone Who Falls In Love Is Searching For The Missing Pieces Of Themselves. So Anyone Who's In Love Gets Sad When They Think Of Their Lover. It's Like Stepping Back Inside A Room You Have Fond Memories Of, One You Haven't Seen In A Long Time.

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

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.

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.

I Feel Like I've Swallowed A Cloudy Sky

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

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

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.

Our Responsibility Begins With Our Imagination.

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

What's Nurtured Slowly Grows Well.

Team Sports Aren't My Thing. I Find It Easier To Pick Something Up If I Can Do It At My Own Speed. And You Don't Need A Partner To Go Running, You Don't Need A Particular Place, Like In Tennis, Just A Pair Of Trainers.

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.

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

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

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

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

If You Only Read The Books That Everyone Else Is Reading, You Can Only Think What Everyone Else Is Thinking.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It Seems To Me, Though, That You Always Understand Very Well What I Can't Say Very Well. Trouble Is I End Up Being Even Worse At Saying Things Well.

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

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.

No Matter How Honestly You Open Up To Someone, There Are Still Things You Cannot Reveal.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

My Priority Is My Books, At Least At This Point. What I Have To Do Is Write The Narrative Of This Time.

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.

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.

I Was Twenty-one At The Time, About To Turn Twenty-two. No Prospect Of Graduating Soon, And Yet No Reason To Quit School. Caught In The Most Curiously Depressing Circumstances. For Months I'd Been Stuck, Unable To Take One Step In Any New Direction. The World Kept Moving On; I Alone Was At A Standstill. In The Autumn, Everything Took On A Desolate Cast, The Colors Swiftly Fading Before My Eyes. The Sunlight, The Smell Of The Grass, The Faintest Patter Of Rain, Everything Got On My Nerves.

You Could Be Anybody When You're Writing. That's The Reason That I'm Writing: To Be Anybody. You Can Put Your Feet In Various Shoes And Experience Anything.

Then When Dusk Began To Settle He Would Retrace His Steps, Back To His Own World. And On The Way Home, A Loneliness Would Always Claim His Heart. He Could Never Quite Get A Grip On What It Was. It Just Seemed That Whatever Lay Waiting "out There" Was All Too Vast, Too Overwhelming For Him To Possibly Ever Make A Dent In.

Tell Me How You Could Say Such A Thing, She Said, Staring Down At The Ground Beneath Her Feet. You're Not Telling Me Anything I Don't Know Already. 'relax Your Body, And The Rest Of You Will Lighten Up.' What's The Point Of Saying That To Me? If I Relaxed My Body Now, I'd Fall Apart. I've Always Lived Like This, And It's The Only Way I Know How To Go On Living. If I Relaxed For A Second, I'd Never Find My Way Back. I'd Go To Pieces, And The Pieces Would Be Blown Away. Why Can't You See That? How Can You Talk About Watching Over Me If You Can't See That?

When You See Runners In Town Is Easy To Distinguish Beginners From Veterans. The Ones Panting Are Beginners; The Ones With Quiet, Measured Breathing Are The Veterans. Their Hearts, Lost In Thought, Slowly Tick Away Time. When We Pass Each Other On The Road, We Listen To The Rhythm Of Each Other's Breathing, And Sense The Way The Other Person Is Ticking Away The Moments.

Adults Constantly Raise The Bar On Smart Children, Precisely Because They're Able To Handle It. The Children Get Overwhelmed By The Tasks In Front Of Them And Gradually Lose The Sort Of Openness And Sense Of Accomplishment They Innately Have. When They're Treated Like That, Children Start To Crawl Inside A Shell And Keep Everything Inside. It Takes A Lot Of Time And Effort To Get Them To Open Up Again. Kids' Hearts Are Malleable, But Once They Gel It's Hard To Get Them Back The Way They Were.

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.

I Can Bear Any Pain As Long As It Has Meaning.

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

Animals That Not Only Move By Their Own Free Will And Share Feelings With People But Also Possess Sight And Hearing Qualify As Deserving Of Names.

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.

I'm Not Sure If I Could Tell The Difference—between Just Staring Into Space And Thinking. We're Usually Thinking All The Time, Aren't We? Not That We Live In Order To Think, But The Opposite Isn't True Either—that We Think In Order To Live. I Believe, Contrary To Descartes, That We Sometimes Think In Order Not To Be. Staring Into Space Might Unintentionally Have The Opposite Effect.

Chance Encounters Are What Keep Us Going.

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

Nobody's Easier To Fool, Than The Person Who Is Convinced That He Is Right.

I Wasn't In Love With Her. And She Didn't Love Me. For Me The Question Of Love Was Irrelevant. What I Sought Was The Sense Of Being Tossed About By Some Raging, Savage Force, In The Midst Of Which Lay Something Absolutely Crucial. I Had No Idea What That Was. But I Wanted To Thrust My Hand Right Inside Her Body And Touch It, Whatever It Was.

Cell Phones Are So Convenient That They're An Inconvenience.

Of What Value Is A Civilization That Can't Toast A Piece Of Bread As Ordered?

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

Many Are The Women Who Can Take Their Clothes Off Seductively, But Women Who Can Charm As They Dress?

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.

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

Everyone Just Keeps On Disappearing. Some Things Vanish, Like They Were Cut Away. Others Fade Slowly Into The Mist. And All That Remains Is A Desert.

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Andrei Platonov

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