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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.

-Haruki Murakami

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You Know, Eating's Much

Haruki Murakami

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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.

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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.

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With Luck, It Might Even Snow For Us.

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On Any Given Day, Something Claims Our Attention. Anything At All, Inconsequential Things. A Rosebud, A Misplaced Hat, That Sweater We Liked As A Child, An Old Gene Pitney Record. A Parade Of Trivia With No Place To Go. Things That Bump Around In Our Consciousness For Two Or Three Days Then Go Back To Wherever They Came From... To Darkness. We've Got All These Wells Dug In Our Hearts. While Above The Wells, Birds Flit Back And Forth.

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.

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

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.

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.

A Certain Something, He Felt, Had Managed To Work Its Way In Through A Tiny Opening And Was Trying To Fill A Blank Space Inside Him. The Void Was Not One That She Had Made. It Had Always Been There Inside Him. She Had Merely Managed To Shine A Special Light On It.

Knowledge And Ability Were Tools, Not Things To Show Off.

I Get Up Early In The Morning, 4 O'clock, And I Sit At My Desk And What I Do Is Just Dream. After Three Or Four Hours, That's Enough. In The Afternoon, I Run.

Is It Possible To Become Friends With A Butterfly?

For Novelists Or Musicians, If They Really Want To Create Something, They Need To Go Downstairs And Find A Passage To Get Into The Second Basement. What I Want To Do Is Go Down There, But Still Stay Sane.

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

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.

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Concentration Is One Of The Happiest Things In My Life.

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

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.

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

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?

She Was A Keen Observer, A Precise User Of Language, Sharp-tongued And Funny. She Could Stir Your Emotions. Yes, Really, That's What She Was So Good At - Stirring People's Emotions, Moving You. And She Knew She Had This Power...i Only Realized Later. At The Time, I Had No Idea What She Was Doing To Me.

Listen - God Only Exists In People's Minds. Especially In Japan, God's Always Been Kind Of A Flexible Concept. Look At What Happened After The War. Douglas Macarthur Ordered The Divine Emperor To Quit Being God, And He Did, Making A Speech Saying He Was Just An Ordinary Person. So After 1946 He Wasn't God Anymore. That's What Japanese Gods Are Like--they Can Be Tweaked And Adjusted. Some American Comping On A Cheap Pipe Gives The Order And Presto Change-o--god's No Longer God. A Very Postmodern Kind Of Thing. If You Think God's There, He Is. If You Don't, He Isn't.

Everybody Feels Safe Belonging Not To The Excluded Minority But To The Excluding Majority. You Think, Oh, I’m Glad That’s Not Me. It’s Basically The Same In All Periods In All Societies. If You Belong To The Majority, You Can Avoid Thinking About Lots Of Troubling Things.

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

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

That’s How Stories Happen — With A Turning Point, An Unexpected Twist. There’s Only One Kind Of Happiness, But Misfortune Comes In All Shapes And Sizes. It’s Like Tolstoy Said. Happiness Is An Allegory, Unhappiness A Story.

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

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

Since I Have Come To America, I Am Often Asked Whether My Next Novel Will Be Set In America. I Don't Think It Will. I Think I Will Be Living In America For Some Time To Come, But While Living In America, I Would Like To Write About Japanese Society From The Outside.

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.

Mountains, According To The Angle Of View, The Season, The Time Of Day, The Beholder's Frame Of Mind, Or Any One Thing, Can Effectively Change Their Appearance. Thus, It Is Essential To Recognize That We Can Never Know More Than One Side, One Small Aspect Of A Mountain.

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

Nature Is Actually Unnatural

Since I'm A Novelist I'm The Opposite Of You - I Believe That What's Most Important Is What Cannot Be Measured. I'm Not Denying Your Way Of Thinking, But The Greater Part Of People's Lives Consist Of Things That Are Unmeasurable, And Trying To Change All These To Something Measurable Is Realistically Impossible.

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

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

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

Life Is Not Like Water. Things In Life Don't Necessarily Flow Over The Shortest Possible Route.

It's Because Of You When I'm In Bed In The Morning That I Can Wind My Spring And Tell Myself I Have To Live Another Good Day.

What I Saw Wasn't A Ghost. It Was Simply--myself. I Can Never Forget How Terrified I Was That Night, And Whenever I Remember It, This Thought Always Springs To Mind: That The Most Frightening Thing In The World Is Our Own Self. What Do You Think?

Find Me Now. Before Someone Else Does.

I Never Plan. I Never Know What The Next Page Is Going To Be..... But That's The Fun Of Writing A Novel Or A Story, Because I Don't Know What's Going To Happen Next.

In My Younger Days, I Was Trying To Write Sophisticated Prose And Fantastic Stories.

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

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.

The Library Was Like A Second Home. Or Maybe More Like A Real Home, More Than The Place I Lived In. By Going Every Day I Got To Know All The Lady Librarians Who Worked There. They Knew My Name And Always Said Hi. I Was Painfully Shy, Though, And Could Barely Reply.

The Things She Most Wanted To Tell Him Would Lose Their Meaning The Moment She Put Them Into Words.

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

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.

Understanding Is But The Sum Of Misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding

Things Like That Happen All The Time In This Great Big World Of Ours. It's Like Taking A Boat Out On A Beautiful Lake On A Beautiful Day And Thinking Both The Sky And The Lake Are Beautiful. So Stop Eating Yourself Up Alive. Things Will Go Where They're Supposed To Go If You Just Let Them Take Their Natural Course.

The Body Is Not The Only Target Of Rape. Violence Does Not Always Take A Visible Form, And Not All Wounds Gush Blood.

In Traveling, A Companion, In Life, Compassion,'" She Repeats, Making Sure Of It. If She Had Paper And Pencil, It Wouldn't Surprise Me If She Wrote It Down. "so What Does That Really Mean? In Simple Terms." I Think It Over. It Takes Me A While To Gather My Thoughts, But She Waits Patiently. "i Think It Means," I Say, "that Chance Encounters Are What Keep Us Going. In Simple Terms.

In Dreams You Don't Need To Make Any Distinctions Between Things. Not At All. Boundaries Don't Exist. So In Dreams There Are Hardly Ever Collisions. Even If There Are, They Don't Hurt. Reality Is Different. Reality Bites. Reality, Reality.

I Think That My Job Is To Observe People And The World, And Not To Judge Them. I Always Hope To Position Myself Away From So-called Conclusions. I Would Like To Leave Everything Wide Open To All The Possibilities In The World.

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