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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.

-Haruki Murakami

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When I Open Them,

Haruki Murakami

...

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.

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Lost Opportunities, Lost Possibilities, Feelings We Can Never Get Back. That's Part Of What It Means To Be Alive. But Inside Our Heads - At Least That's Where I Imagine It - There's A Little Room Where We Store Those Memories. A Room Like The Stacks In This Library. And To Understand The Workings Of Our Own Heart We Have To Keep On Making New Reference Cards. We Have To Dust Things Off Every Once In Awhile, Let In Fresh Air, Change The Water In The Flower Vases. In Other Words, You'll Live Forever In Your Own Private Library.

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

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

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

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

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?

You Are 27 Or 28 Right? It Is Very Tough To Live At That Age. When Nothing Is Sure. I Have Sympathy With You.

Precipitate As Weather, She Appeared From Somewhere, Then Evaporated, Leaving Only Memory.

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

It's A Dark, Cool, Quiet Place. A Basement In Your Soul. And That Place Can Sometimes Be Dangerous To The Human Mind. I Can Open The Door And Enter That Darkness, But I Have To Be Very Careful. I Can Find My Story There. Then I Bring That Thing To The Surface, Into The Real World.

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

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.

You Like To Write. It's The Single Most Important Quality For Someone Who Wants To Be A Writer. But Not In Itself Enough.

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.

Sometimes I Get Real Lonely Sleeping With You.

No Mistake About It. Ice Is Cold; Roses Are Red; I'm In Love. And This Love Is About To Carry Me Off Somewhere. The Current's Too Overpowering; I Don't Have Any Choice. It May Very Well Be A Special Place, Some Place I've Never Seen Before. Danger May Be Lurking There, Something That May End Up Wounding Me Deeply, Fatally. I Might End Up Losing Everything. But There's No Turning Back. I Can Only Go With The Flow. Even If It Means I'll Be Burned Up, Gone Forever.

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.

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

Black And White

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

No Truth Can Cure The Sorrow We Feel From Losing A Loved One. No Truth, No Sincerity, No Strength, No Kindness Can Cure That Sorrow. All We Can Do Is See It Through To The End And Learn Something From It, But What We Learn Will Be No Help In Facing The Next Sorrow That Comes To Us Without Warning.

Losing A Loved One

I Wrote A Huge Number Of Letters That Spring: One A Week To Naoko, Several To Reiko, And Several More To Midori. I Wrote Letters In The Classroom, I Wrote Letters At My Desk At Home With Seagull In My Lap, I Wrote Letters At Empty Tables During My Breaks At The Italian Restaurant. It Was As If I Were Writing Letters To Hold Together The Pieces Of My Crumbling Life.

I Like To Read Books. I Like To Listen To Music.

Listening To Music

But Metaphors Help Eliminate What Separates You And Me.

Gays, Lesbians, Straights, Feminists, Fascist Pigs, Communists, Hare Krishnas - None Of Them Bother Me. I Don't Care What Banner They Raise. But What I Can't Stand Are Hollow People. When I'm With Them I Just Can't Bare It, And Wind Up Saying Things I Shouldn't.

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

I Am Here, Alone, At The End Of The World. I Reach Out And Touch Nothing.”.

End Of The World

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.

You Know What I Should Do?" Hoshino Asked Excited. "of Course," The Cat Said. "what'd I Tell You? Cats Know Everything. Not Like Dogs.

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

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.

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

Memory Is Like Fiction; Or Else It's Fiction That's Like Memory.

You Live By Yourself For A Stretch Of Time And You Get To Staring At Different Objects. Sometimes You Talk To Yourself. You Take Meals In Crowded Joints. You Develop An Intimate Relationship With Your Used Subaru. You Slowly But Surely Become A Has-been.

Intimate Relationships

There's An Essential Order You Have To Follow In Everything. It's A Way Of Showing Respect, Following Everything In The Correct Order.

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.

You’re Optimistic One Moment, Only To Be Racked The Next By The Certainty That It Will All Fall To Pieces. And In The End It Does.

Time Expands, Then Contracts, All In Tune With The Stirrings Of The Heart.

My Heart Would Swell Without Warning, And Tremble, And Lurch With A Stab Of Pain. I Would Try Clamping My Eyes Shut And Gritting My Teeth, And Waiting For It To Pass. And It Would Pass -- But Slowly, Taking Its Own Time, And Leaving A Dull Ache Behind.

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

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

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

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

The Pillow Smells Like The Sunlight, A Precious Smell.

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

You Know, The Usual Story. Once Upon A Time I Was Playing My Harp By A Spring When A Fairy Appeared Out Of Nowhere, Handed Me A Beretta Model 92, And Told Me To Shoot The White Rabbit Over There For Target Practice.

There's No War That Will End All Wars.

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.

I Wasn't Particularly Afraid Of Death Itself. As Shakespeare Said, Die This Year And You Don't Have To Die The Next.

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

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

A Short Story I Have Written Long Ago Would Barge Into My House In The Middle Of The Night, Shake Me Awake And Shout, 'hey,this Is No Time For Sleeping! You Can't Forget Me, There's Still More To Write!' Impelled By That Voice, I Would Find Myself Writing A Novel. In This Sense, Too, My Short Stories And Novels Connect Inside Me In A Very Natural, Organic Way.

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

All Over The World People Have Developed Their Own Ideas About What's Right And Wrong In Life, But So Long As You Aren't Harming Others Or The Earth, It's Your Choice When You Decide How You Want To Live Your Life - Yours And Yours Alone. Life's No Piece Of Cake, Mind You, But The Recipe's My Own To Fool With.

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

There's Not Much You Can Do About Time - It Just Keeps On Passing. But Experience? Don't Tell Me That. I'm Not Proud Of It, But I Don't Have Any Sexual Desire. And What Sort Of Experience Can A Writer Have If She Doesn't Feel Passion? It'd Be Like A Chef Without An Appetite.

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

She's Always Polite And Kind, But Her Words Lack The Kind Of Curiosity And Excitement You'd Normally Expect. Her True Feelings- Assuming Such Things Exist- Remain Hidden Away. Except For When A Practical Sort Of Decision Has To Be Made, She Never Gives Her Personal Opinion About Anything. She Seldom Talks About Herself, Instead Letting Others Talk, Nodding Warmly As She Listens. But Most People Start To Feel Vaguely Uneasy When Talking With Her, As If They Suspect They're Wasting Her Time, Trampling On Her Private, Graceful, Dignified World. And That Impression Is, For The Most Part, Correct.

Personal Opinions

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

I Don't Know -- Maybe The World Has Two Different Kinds Of People, And For One Kind The World Is This Completely Logical, Rice Pudding Place, And For The Other It's All Hit-or-miss Macaroni Gratin.

It 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.

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.

This Place Is Too Calm, Too Natural--too Complete. I Don't Deserve It. At Least Not Yet.

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.

People Need Routines. It's Like A Theme In Music. But It Also Restrictsyour Thoughts And Actions And Limits Your Freedom. It Structures Your Priorities And In Some Cases Distorts Your Logic.

I Feel Like I've Swallowed A Cloudy Sky

In Most Cases Learning Something Essential In Life Requires Physical Pain.

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

If We Reverse The Outer Shell And The Essence--in Other Words, Consider The Outer Shell The Essence And The Essence Only The Shell--our Lives Might Be A Whole Lot Easier To Understand.

Will You Wait For Me Forever?

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.

When I Was Little, I Had This Science Book. There Was A Section On 'what Would Happen To The World If There Was No Friction?' Answer: 'everything On Earth Would Fly Into Space From The Centrifugal Force Of Revolution.' That Was My Mood.

This Is No Honky-tonk Parade. 1q84 Is The Real World, Where A Cut Draws Real Blood, Where Pain Is Real Pain And Fear Is Real Fear. The Moon In The Sky Is No Paper Moon.

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

I Never Made Any Plan Before Writing, However I Succeeded. I Enjoyed Writing With Excitement ,"what Happen On The Next Page?"

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.

Whenever She Felt Like Crying, She Would Instead Become Angry—at Someone Else Or At Herself—which Meant That It Was Rare For Her To Shed Tears.

Angry At Someone

I Hurt Myself Deeply, Though At The Time I Had No Idea How Deeply. I Should Have Learned Many Things From That Experience, But When I Look Back On It, All I Gained Was One Single, Undeniable Fact. That Ultimately I Am A Person Who Can Do Evil. I Never Consciously Tried To Hurt Anyone, Yet Good Intentions Notwithstanding, When Necessity Demanded, I Could Become Completely Self-centred, Even Cruel. I Was The Kind Of Person Who Could, Using Some Plausible Excuse, Inflict On A Person I Cared For A Wound That Would Never Heal.

Even If There Were Two Of Me, I Still Couldn't Do All That Has To Be Done. No Matter What, Though, I Keep Up My Running. Running Every Day Is A Kind Of Lifeline For Me, So I'm Not Going To Lay Off Or Quit Just Because I'm Busy. 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. All I Can Do Is Keep Those Few Reasons Nicely Polished.

I Don't Think Jealousy Has Much Of A Connection With Real, Objective Conditions. Like If You're Fortunate You're Not Jealous, But If Life Hasn't Blessed You, You Are Jealous. Jealousy Doesn't Work That Way. It's More Like A Tumor Secretly Growing Inside Us That Gets Bigger And Bigger, Beyond All Reason. Even If You Find Out It's There, There's Nothing You Can Do To Stop It.

As I Already Explaned, I Don't Have Any Form. I'm A Conceptual Metaphysical Object.

Is Action Merely The Incidental Product Of Thought, Or Is Thought The Consequential Product Of Action?

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

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.

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.

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

The Passage Of Time Will Usually Extract The Venom Of Most Things And Render Them Harmless

Passage Of Time

All Imperfections Are Forced Upon The Imperfect, So The 'perfect' Can Live Content And Oblivious.

Where I Went In My Travels, It's Impossible For Me To Recall. I Remember The Sights And Sounds And Smells Clearly Enough, But The Names Of The Towns Are Gone, As Well As Any Sense Of The Order In Which I Traveled From Place To Place.

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

Love Can Rebuild The World, They Say, So Everything's Possible When It Comes To Love.

I Have This Strange Feeling That I'm Not Myself Anymore. It's Hard To Put Into Words, But I Guess It's Like I Was Fast Asleep, And Someone Came, Disassembled Me, And Hurriedly Put Me Back Together Again. That Sort Of Feeling.

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.

So For All That We Might Speak Words In Each Other's Vicinity, This Could Never Develop Into Anything That Could Be Called A Conversation. It Was As Though We Were Speaking In Different Languages. If The Dalai Lama Were On His Deathbed And The Jazz Musician Eric Dolphy Were To Try To Explain To Him The Importance Of Choosing One's Engine Oil In Accordance With Changes In The Sound Of The Bass Clarinet, That Exchange Might Have Been More Worthwhile And Effective Than My Conversations With Noboru Wataya.

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.

Sometimes It's Not The People Who Change, It's The Mask That Falls Off.

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

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

In Everybody’s Life There’s A Point Of No Return. And In A Very Few Cases, A Point Where You Can’t Go Forward Anymore. And When We Reach That Point, All We Can Do Is Quietly Accept The Fact. That’s How We Survive.

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.

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

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

Life: I'll Never Understand It.

Life Doesn't Require Ideals. It Requires Standards Of Action.

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.

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.

Two People Can Sleep In The Same Bed And Still Be Alone When They Close Their Eyes

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

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

Strong And Independent? I’m Neither. I’m Just Being Pushed Along By Reality, Whether I Like It Or Not.

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

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.

Concentration Is One Of The Happiest Things In My Life.

Sometimes Fate Is Like A Small Sandstorm That Keeps Changing Directions. You Change Direction But The Sandstorm Chases You. You Turn Again, But The Storm Adjusts.

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.

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.

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

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.

What The World Needs Is A Set Villain That People Can Point At And Say, “it’s All Your Fault!

A State Of Chronic Powerlessness Eats Away At A Person

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

Rousseau Defined Civilizations As When People Build Fences.

I Think Certain Types Of Processes Don’t Allow For Any Variation. If You Have To Be Part Of That Process, All You Can Do Is Transform—or Perhaps Distort—yourself Through That Persistent Repetition, And Make That Process A Part Of Your Own Personality.

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.

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

The Point Is, Not To Resist The Flow. You Go Up When You're Supposed To Go Up And Down When You're Supposed To Go Down. When You're Supposed To Go Up, Find The Highest Tower And Climb To The Top. When You're Supposed To Go Down, Find The Deepest Well And Go Down To The Bottom. When There's No Flow, Stay Still. If You Resist The Flow, Everything Dries Up. If Everything Dries Up, The World Is Darkness.

As With Marathon Runs And Lengths Of Toilet Paper, There Had To Be Standards To Measure Up To.

All Right, Then, I Thought: Here I Am In The Bottom Of A Well.

I'm A Coward When It Comes To Matters Of The Heart. That Is My Fatal Flaw.

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.

It Feels Good To Think About You When I'm Warm In Bed. I Feel As If You're Curled Up There Beside Me, Fast Asleep. And I Think How Great It Would Be If It Were True.

Holding This Soft, Small Living Creature In My Lap This Way, Though, And Seeing How It Slept With Complete Trust In Me, I Felt A Warm Rush In My Chest. I Put My Hand On The Cat's Chest And Felt His Heart Beating. The Pulse Was Faint And Fast, But His Heart, Like Mine, Was Ticking Off The Time Allotted To His Small Body With All The Restless Earnestness Of My Own.

Sometimes I Wonder Why I'm A Novelist Right Now. There Is No Definite Career Reason Why I Became A Writer. Something Happened, And I Became A Writer. And Now I'm A Successful Writer.

But This Thing, Whatever It Was, This Mistlike Something, Hung There Inside My Body Like A Certain Kind Of Potential. I Wanted To Give It A Name, But The Word Refused To Come To Mind. I’m Terrible At Finding The Right Words For Things. I’m Sure Tolstoy Would Have Been Able To Come Up With Exactly The Right Word

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

Only The Dead Stay Seventeen Forever.

Even If You Don't Acknowledge It, People Die, And Guys Sleep With Girls. That's Just How It Is.

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.

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.

Nature Is Actually Unnatural

If You Want To Talk About Something New, You Have To Make Up A New Kind Of Language.

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.

Of Course It Hurt That We Could Never Love Each Other In A Physical Way. We Would Have Been Far More Happy If We Had. But That Was Like The Tides, The Change Of Seasons--something Immutable, An Immovable Destiny We Could Never Alter. No Matter How Cleverly We Might Shelter It, Our Delicate Friendship Wasn't Going To Last Forever. We Were Bound To Reach A Dead End. That Was Painfully Clear.

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.

Everything Just Blows Me Away.

We Knew Exactly What We Wanted In Each Other. And Even So, It Ended. One Day It Stopped, As If The Film Simply Slipped Off The Reel.

I Want You Always To Remember Me. Will You Remember That I Existed, And That I Stood Next To You Here Like This?

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

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

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.

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

Time Weighs Down On You Like An Old, Ambiguous Dream. You Keep On Moving, Trying To Sleep Through It. But Even If You Go To The Ends Of The Earth, You Won't Be Able To Escape It. Still, You Have To Go There- To The Edge Of The World. There's Something You Can't Do Unless You Get There.

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

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.

The Good Thing About Writing Books Is That You Can Dream While You Are Awake. If It’s A Real Dream, You Cannot Control It. When Writing The Book, You Are Awake; You Can Choose The Time, The Length, Everything. I Write For Four Or Five Hours In The Morning And When The Time Comes, I Stop. I Can Continue The Next Day. If It’s A Real Dream, You Can’t Do That.

She Was, If Anything, On The Plain Side, At Least Not The Type To Attract Men Wherever She Went. But There Was Something In Her Face That Was Meant For Me Alone. Everytime We Met, I Took A Good Look At Her. And Loved What I Saw.

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.

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.

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.

What's Really Important Here," I Whispered Loudly To Myself,"is Not The Big Things Other People Have Thought Up, But The Small Things You, Yourself Have

...most People In The World Don't Really Use Their Brains To Think. And People Who Don't Think Are The Ones Who Don't Listen To Others.

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

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

It's Not Me But The World That's Deranged.

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.

Everybody Burns Out In This World; Amateur, Pro, It Doesn't Matter, They All Burn Out, They All Get Hurt, The Ok Guys And The Not-ok Guys Both. That's Why Everybody Takes Out A Little Insurance. I've Got Some Too, Here At The Bottom Of The Heap. That Way, You Manage To Survive If You Burn Out. If You're All By Yourself And Don't Belong Anywhere, You Go Down Once, And You're Out. Finished.

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

I Don’t Know What It Means To Live.

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.

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.

We Each Have A Special Something We Can Get Only At A Special Time Of Our Life. Like A Small Flame. A Careful, Fortunate Few Cherish That Flame, Nurture It, Hold It As A Torch To Light Their Way. But Once That Flame Goes Out, It’s Gone Forever.

My Shadow Is Only Half Of What It Should Be." "everyone Has Their Shortcomings.

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.

They Sat On A Park Bench, Held Hands, And Told Each Other Their Stories Hour After Hour. They Were Not Lonely Anymore. They Had Found And Been Found By Their 100% Perfect Other. What A Wonderful Thing It Is To Find And Be Found By Your 100% Perfect Other. It's A Miracle, A Cosmic Miracle.

I Move, Therefore I Am.

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

Stories Lie Deep In Our Souls. Stories Lie So Deep At The Bottom Of Our Hearts That They Can Bring People Together On The Deepest Level. When I Write A Novel, I Go Into Such Depths.

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

You're Afraid Of Imagination And Even More Afraid Of Dreams. Afraid Of The Resposibility That Begins In Dreams. But You Have To Sleep And Dreams Are A Part Of Sleep. When You're Awake You Can Suppress Imagination But You Can't Supress Dreams.

Lots Of Different Ways To Live And Lots Of Different Ways To Die. But In The End That Doesn't Make A Bit Of Difference. All That Remains Is A Desert.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Think Of Rivers, Of Tides. Forests And Water Gushing Out. Rain And Lightning. Rocks And Shadows. All Of These Are In Me.

I Had My Jazz Club And I Had Enough Money. So I Didn't Have To Write For My Living.

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.

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.

Everything Passes. Nobody Gets Anything For Keeps. And That's How We've Got To Live.

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

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.

I Closed My Eyes And Listened Carefully For The Descendants Of Sputnik, Even Now Circling The Earth, Gravity Their Only Tie To The Planet. Lonely Metal Souls In The Unimpeded Darkness Of Space, They Meet, Pass Each Other, And Part, Never To Meet Again. No Words Passing Between Them. No Promises To Keep.

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.

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

But The Silence Spoke Volumes.

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

Passing Moments

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

When It's Raining Like This," Said Naoko, "it Feels As If We're The Only Ones In The World. I Wish It Would Just Keep Raining So The Three Of Us Could Stay Together.

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