Background Image

...

Why?" She Screamed. "are You Crazy? You Know The English Subjunctive, You Understand Trigonometry, You Can Read Marx, And You Don't Know The Answer To Something As Simple As That? Why Do You Even Have To Ask? Why Do You Have To Make A Girl Say Something Like This? I Like You More Than I Like Him, That's All. I Wish I Had Fallen In Love With Somebody A Little More Handsome, Of Course. But I Didn't. I Fell In Love With You!

-Haruki Murakami

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Why?" She Screamed. "are

Haruki Murakami

...

Why?" She Screamed. "are You Crazy? You Know The English Subjunctive, You Understand Trigonometry, You Can Read Marx, And You Don't Know The Answer To Something As Simple As That? Why Do You Even Have To Ask? Why Do You Have To Make A Girl Say Something Like This? I Like You More Than I Like Him, That's All. I Wish I Had Fallen In Love With Somebody A Little More Handsome, Of Course. But I Didn't. I Fell In Love With You!

Views: 8

Topic

More From Haruki Murakami

It Was A Strange Feeling, Like Touching A Void.

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.

That's How People Live In The Real World: Forcing Stuff On Each Other.

Will You Wait For Me Forever?

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.

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

Beyond The Edge Of The World There’s A Space Where Emptiness And Substance Neatly Overlap, Where Past And Future Form A Continuous, Endless Loop. And, Hovering About, There Are Signs No One Has Ever Read, Chords No One Has Ever Heard.

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.

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

You Can’t Look Too Far Ahead. Do That And You’ll Lose Sight Of What You’re Doing And Stumble. I’m Not Saying You Should Focus Solely On The Details Right In Front Of You, Mind You. You’ve Got To Look Ahead A Bit Or Else You’ll Bump Into Something. You’ve Got To Conform To The Proper Order And At The Same Time Keep An Eye Out For What’s Ahead. That’s Critical, No Matter What You’re Doing.

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

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.

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

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

Rousseau Defined Civilizations As When People Build Fences.

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

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.

When I Wake Up, My Pillow’s Cold And Damp With Tears. But Tears For What? I Have No Idea.

I'd Be Smiling And Chatting Away, And My Mind Would Be Floating Around Somewhere Else, Like A Balloon With A Broken String.

Hundreds Of Butterflies Flitted In And Out Of Sight Like Short-lived Punctuation Marks In A Stream Of Consciousness Without Beginning Or End.

Punctuation Marks

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Story Is Not Something Of This World. A Real Story Requires A Kind Of Magical Baptism To Link The World On This Side With The World On The Other Side.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Time Really Is One Big Continuous Cloth, No? We Habitually Cut Out Pieces Of Time To Fit Us, So We Tend To Fool Ourselves Into Thinking That Time Is Our Size, But It Really Goes On And On.

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.

I Laughed. “you’re Too Young To Be So … Pessimistic,” I Said, Using The English Word. “pessi-what?” “pessimistic. It Means Looking Only At The Dark Side Of Things.” “pessimistic … Pessimistic …” She Repeated The English To Herself Over And Over, And Then She Looked Up At Me With A Fierce Glare. “i’m Only Sixteen,” She Said, “and I Don’t Know Much About The World, But I Do Know One Thing For Sure. If I’m Pessimistic, Then The Adults In This World Who Are Not Pessimistic Are A Bunch Of Idiots.

Well, Finally, The Events I've Been Through Have Been Tremendously Complicated. All Kinds Of Characters Have Come On The Scene, And Strange Things Have Happened One After Another, To The Point Where, If I Try To Think About Them In Order, I Lose Track.

All Things In My Novels Are Real For Me. Some Western Critics Said That Garcia Marquez's Novels Are Magic Realism. However, I Believe That Marquez Must Have Experienced Everything In His Novels.

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

I Often Recall These Words When I Am Writing, And I Think To Myself, “it’s True. There Aren’t Any New Words. Our Job Is To Give New Meanings And Special Overtones To Absolutely Ordinary Words.” I Find The Thought Reassuring. It Means That Vast, Unknown Stretches Still Lie Before Us, Fertile Territories Just Waiting For Us To Cultivate Them.

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

I 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.

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.

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

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

That's Good. I Was Worried. Of Course, I Do Have A Few Things Wrong With Me, But Those Are Strictly Problems I Keep Inside. I'd Hate To Think They Were Obvious To Anybody Else. Especially At The Swimming Pool In The Summer.

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

Whiskey, Like A Beautiful Woman, Demands Appreciation. You Gaze First, Then It's Time To Drink.

You Know, Eating's Much More Important Than Most People Think. There Comes A Time In Your Life When You've Just Got To Have Something Super-delicious. And When You're Standing At That Crossroads Your Whole Life Can Change, Depending On Which One You Go Into - The Good Restaurant Or The Awful One.

I Don't Really Know If It's The Right Thing To Do, Making New Life. Kids Grow Up, Generations Take Their Place. What Does It All Come To? More Hills Bulldozed And More Ocean Fronts Filled In? Faster Cars And More Cats Run Over? Who Needs It?

Wherever There's Hope There's A Trial.

We Were Young, And We Had No Need For Prophecies. Just Living Was Itself An Act Of Prophecy.

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

People Soon Get Tired Of Things That Aren't Boring, But Not Of What Is Boring.

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

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

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

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.

It's True Though: Time Moves In Its Own Special Way In The Middle Of The Night," The Bartender Says, Loudly Striking A Book Match And Lighting A Cigarette. "you Can't Fight It.

Whether It's Good For Anything Or Not, Cool Or Totally Uncool, In The Final Analysis What's Most Important Is What You Can't See But Can Feel In Your Heart.

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

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

I 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.

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

People Lose Fifty Million Skin Cells Every Day. The Cells Get Scraped Off And Turn Into Invisible Dust, And Disappear Into The Air. Maybe We Are Nothing But Skin Cells As Far As The World Is Concerned.

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

Even When I Ran My Bar I Followed The Same Policy. A Lot Of Customers Came To The Bar. If One In Ten Enjoyed The Place And Said He'd Come Again, That Was Enough. If One Out Of Ten Was A Repeat Customer, Then The Business Would Survive. To Put It Another Way, It Didn't Matter If Nine Out Of Ten Didn't Like My Bar. This Realization Lifted A Weight Off My Shoulders. Still, I Had To Make Sure That The One Person Who Did Like The Place.

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

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

In Dreams Begins Responsiblities.

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.

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

When There's Nothing To Do, You Do Nothing Slowly And Intently.

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.

Most People Are Not Looking For Provable Truths. As You Said, Truth Is Often Accompanied By Intense Pain, And Almost No One Is Looking For Painful Truths. What People Need Is Beautiful, Comforting Stories That Make Them Feel As If Their Lives Have Some Meaning. Which Is Where Religion Comes From.

I've Run The Boston Marathon 6 Times Before. I Think The Best Aspects Of The Marathon Are The Beautiful Changes Of The Scenery Along The Route And The Warmth Of The People's Support. I Feel Happier Every Time I Enter This Marathon.

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.

As Long As Possible, I Would Really Like To Complete One Marathon Per Year. Though My Time Has Been Slowing Down As I Get Older, It Has Become A Very Important Part Of My Life.

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.

You End Up Exhausted And Spent, But Later, In Retrospect, You Realize What It All Was For. The Parts Fall Into Place, And You Can See The Whole Picture And Finally Understand The Role Each Individual Part Plays. The Dawn Comes, The Sky Grows Light, And The Colors And Shapes Of The Roofs Of Houses, Which You Could Only Glimpse Vaguely Before, Come Into Focus.

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

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

Life's No Piece Of Cake, Mind You, But The Recipe's My Own To Fool With.

Whatever It Is You're Seeking Won't Come In The Form You're Expecting.

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

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.

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

So Once You're Dead There's Just Nothing? Mari: Basically... Korogi: I Get So Scared When I Start Thinking About This Stuff. I Can Hardly Breathe, And My Whole Body Wants To Shrink Into A Corner. It's So Much Easier To Just Believe In Reincarnation.

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?

The Best Thing Would Be To Break Your Neck, But You'd Probably Just Break Your Leg And Then You Couldn't Do A Thing. You'd Yell At The Top Of Your Lungs, But Nobody;d Hear You, And You Couldn't Expect Anybody To Find You, And You'd Have Centipedes And Spiders Crawling All Over You, And The Bones Of The Ones Who Died Before Are Scattered All Around You, And It's Dark And Soggy, And Way Overhead There's This Tiny, Tiny Circle Of Light Like A Winter Moon. You Die There In This Place, Little By Little, All By Yourself.

Sometimes When I'm With You, I Remember Things I Lost When I Was Your Age. Like I Remember The Sound Of The Rain And The Smell Of The Wind.

You Don’t Get It, Do You?" I Said. “it’s Not A Question Of ‘what Then’. Some People Get A Kick Out Of Reading Railroad Timetables And That’s All They Do All Day. Some People Make Huge Model Boats Out Of Matchsticks. So What’s Wrong If There Happens To Be One Guy In The World Who Enjoys Trying To Understand You?

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.

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

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?

The Sky Grew Darker, Painted Blue On Blue, One Stroke At A Time, Into Deeper And Deeper Shades Of Night.

The Others In The Dorm Thought I Wanted To Be A Writer, Because I Was Always Alone With A Book, But I Had No Such Ambition. There Was Nothing I Wanted To Be.

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

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

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

Taking Crazy Things Seriously Is A Serious Waste Of Time.

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.

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

The Silence Grew Deeper, So Deep That If You Listened Carefully You Might Very Well Catch The Sound Of The Earth Revolving On Its Axis.

If I'm Going To Merely Ramble, Maybe I Should Just Snuggle Under The Warm Covers, Think Of Miu, And Play With Myself.

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.

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

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 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.

At My Core, There Is Nothing. Neither Is It Parched Wastelands. At My Core, There Is Love. I'll Go On Loving That Ten-year-old Boy Named Tengo Forever --- His Strength, His Intelligence, His Kindness. He Does Not Exist Here, With Me, But Flesh That Does Not Exist Will Never Die, And Promises Unmade Are Never Broken.

Once She Was Out Of The Car And Gone, My World Was Suddenly Hollow And Meaningless.

People Want To Be Bowled Over By Something Special. Nine Times Out Of Ten You Might Strike Out, But That Tenth Time, That Peak Experience, Is What People Want. That's What Can Move The World. That's Art.

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?

All You Have To Do Is Wait,” I Explained. “sit Tight And Wait For The Right Moment. Not Try To Change Anything By Force, Just Watch The Drift Of Things. Make An Effort To Cast A Fair Eye On Everything. If You Do That, You Just Naturally Know What To Do. But Everyone’s Always Too Busy. They’re Too Talented, Their Schedules Are Too Full. They’re Too Interested In Themselves To Think About What’s Fair.

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.

She Gave Me This Look – She Might Have Been Watching From A Lifeboat As The Ship Went Down. Or Maybe It Was The Other Way Around.

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.

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.

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

I'm Not So Weird To Me.

I Never Trust People With No Appetite. It's Like They're Always Holding Something Back On You.

They Take The Circuits Out Of People’s Brains That Make It Possible For Them To Think For Themselves. Their World Is Like The One That George Orwell Depicted In His Novel. I’m Sure You Realize That There Are Plenty Of People Who Are Looking For Exactly That Kind Of Brain Death. It Makes Life A Lot Easier. You Don’t Have To Think About Difficult Things, Just Shut Up And Do What Your Superiors Tell You To Do.

The Young Man Knows That He Is Irretrievably Lost. This Is No Town Of Cats, He Finally Realizes. It Is The Place Where He Is Meant To Be Lost. It Is Another World, Which Has Been Prepared Especially For Him. And Never Again, For All Eternity, Will The Train Stop At This Station To Take Him Back To The World He Came From.

Nothing So Consumes A Person As Meaningless Exertion

The Sun Sliced Through The Windshield, Sealing Me In Light. I Closed My Eyes And Felt The Warmth On My Eyelids. Sunlight Traveled A Long Distance To Reach This Planet; An Infinitesimal Portion Of That Sunlight Was Enough To Warm My Eyelids. I Was Moved. That Something As Insignificant As An Eyelid Had Its Place In The Workings On The Universe, That The Cosmic Order Did Not Overlook This Momentary Fact.

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

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

Never Trust A Man Who Carries A Handkerchief, I Always Say. One Of Many Prejudicial Rules Of Thumb.

I Often Dream About The Dolphin Hotel.

Gazing At The Rain, I Consider What It Means To Belong, To Become Part Of Something. To Have Someone Cry For Me.

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

I Have No Models In Japanese Literature. I Created My Own Style, My Own Way.

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

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

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.

Not That Running Away's Going To Solve Everything. I Don't Want To Rain On Your Parade Or Anything, But I Wouldn't Count On Escaping This Place If I Were You. No Matter How Far You Run. Distance Might Not Solve Anything.

Ice Contains No Future , Just The Past, Sealed Away. As If They're Alive, Everything In The World Is Sealed Up Inside, Clear And Distinct. Ice Can Preserve All Kinds Of Things That Way- Cleanly, Clearly. That's The Essence Of Ice, The Role It Plays.

Age Certainly Hadn't Conferred Any Smarts On Me. Character Maybe, But Mediocrity Is A Constant, As One Russian Writer Put It. Russian Writers Have A Way With Aphorisms. They Probably Spend All Winter Thinking Them Up.

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

Imperfect World

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.

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

Pointless Things

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.

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

What Matters Is Deciding In Your Heart To Accept Another Person Completely. When You Do That, It Is Always The First Time And The Last.

No Matter Where I Go, I Still End Up Me. What's Missing Never Changes. The Scenery May Change, But I'm Still The Same Incomplete Person. The Same Missing Elements Torture Me With A Hunger That I Can Never Satisfy. I Think That Lack Itself Is As Close As I'll Come To Defining Myself.

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.

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

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

A State Of Chronic Powerlessness Eats Away At A Person

A Poet Might Die At Twenty-one, A Revolutionary Or A Rock Star At Twenty Four. But After That You Assume Everything’s Going To Be All Right. You’ve Made It Past Dead Man’s Curve And You’re Out Of The Tunnel, Cruising Straight For Your Destination Down A Six Lane Highway Whether You Want It Or Not.

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

All I Do Is Keep On Running In My Own Cozy, Homemade Void, My Own Nostalgic Silence. And This Is A Pretty Wonderful Thing. No Matter What Anybody Else Says.

A Certain Kind Of Shittiness, A Certain Kind Of Stagnation, A Certain Kind Of Darkness, Goes On Propagating Itself By Its Own Power In Its Own Self-contained Cycle. And Once It Passes A Certain Point, No One Can Stop It-even If The Person Himself Wants To Stop It.

Life: I'll Never Understand It.

A Certain Type Of Perfection Can Only Be Realized Through A Limitless Accumulation Of The Imperfect.

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

The Journey I'm Taking Is Inside Me. Just Like Blood Travels Down Veins, What I'm Seeing Is My Inner Self And What Seems Threatening Is Just The Echo Of The Fear In My Heart.

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

I Don't Think Of Myself As An Artist. I'm Just A Guy Who Can Write.

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

Sometimes You’re Just The Sweetest Thing. Like Christmas, Summer Vacation, And A Brand-new Puppy Rolled Into One.

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.

The Worst Thoughts Usually Strike In The Dead Of The Night.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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've Never Met A Girl Who Thinks Like You." "a Lot Of People Tell Me That," She Said, Digging At A Cuticle. "but It's The Only Way I Know How To Think. Seriously. I'm Just Telling You What I Believe. It's Never Crossed My Mind That My Way Of Thinking Is Different From Other People's. I'm Not Trying To Be Different. But When I Speak Out Honestly, Everybody Thinks I'm Kidding Or Playacting. When That Happens, I Feel Like Everything Is Such A Pain!

Each Person Feels Pain In His Own Way, Each Has His Own Scars.

Not Just Beautiful, Though — The Stars Are Like The Trees In The Forest, Alive And Breathing. And They’re Watching Me. What I’ve Up Till Now, What I’m Going To Do — They Know It All. Nothing Gets Past Their Watchful Eyes. As I Sit There Under The Shining Night Sky, Again A Violent Fear Takes Hold Of Me. My Heart’s Pounding A Mile A Minute, And I Can Barely Breathe. All These Millions Of Stars Looking Down On Me, And I’ve Never Given Them More Than A Passing Thought Before. Not Just The Stars — How Many Other Things Haven’t I Noticed In The World, Things I Know Nothing About?

I'm Scared," She Said. "these Days I Feel Like A Snail Without A Shell." "i'm Scared Too," I Said. "i Feel Like A Frog Without Any Webs." She Looked Up And Smiled. Wordlessly We Walked Over To A Shaded Part Of The Building And Held Each Other And Kissed, A Shell-less Snail And A Webless Frog.

I'll Never See Them Again. I Know That. And They Know That. And Knowing This, We Say Farewell.

Long Distance Relationship

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?

As Long As An Individual's Alive, He Will Undergo Experience In Some Form Or Other, And Those Experiences Are Stored Up Instant By Instant. To Stop Experiencin' Is To Die.

Being Alive, If You Had To Define It, Meant Emitting A Variety Of Smells.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

That Was The Rule. Break One Of My Rules Once, And I’m Bound To Break Many More.

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

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.

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

When I'm Running I Don't Have To Talk To Anybody And Don't Have To Listen To Anybody. This Is A Part Of My Day I Can't Do Without.

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

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

Maybe The Only Thing I Can Definitely Say About Is This: That’s Life. Maybe The Only Thing We Can Do Is Accept It, Without Really Knowing What’s Going On.

With Luck, It Might Even Snow For Us.

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

If You Really Want To Know Something, You Have To Be Willing To Pay The Price.

My Heroes Don't Have Anything Special. They Have Something To Tell Other People But They Don't Know How, So They Talk To Themselves.

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

Sometimes I'd Wake Up At Two Or Three In The Morning And Not Be Able To Fall Asleep Again. I'd Get Out Of Bed, Go To The Kitchen, And Pour Myself A Whiskey. Glass In Hand, I'd Look Down At The Darkened Cemetary Across Teh Way And The Headlights Of The Cars On The Road. The Moments Of Time Linking Night And Dawn Were Long And Dark. If I Could Cry, It Might Make Things Easier. But What Would I Cry Over? I Was Too Self Centered To Cry For Other People, Too Old To Cry For Myself.

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

I 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

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?

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.

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

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.

Trending Author

Sarah Orne Jewett

Christina Aguilera

Category