I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain....

Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.

I do feel that I’ve managed to make something I could maybe call my world…over time…little by little. And when I’m inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I’m a weak person, that I bruise easily,...

Hey, Mr. Nakata. Gramps. Fire! Flood! Earthquake! Revolution! Godzilla’s on the loose! Get up!

It was a strange feeling, like touching a void.

You’re afraid of imagination. And even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the responsibility 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 suppress dreams.

It wasn’t like there was some obvious change. Actually, the problem was more a lack of change. Nothing about her had changed – the way she spoke, her clothes, the topics she chose to talk about, her opinions – they were all the same as before. Their relationship was like a pendulum gradually grinding to...

What would make them think I was the model for Midori?!” She told me to fix the misunderstanding immediately, so that’s why I’m writing this reply now. Please stop causing problems in my household. Thank you.

Money had no name, of course. And if it did have a name, it would no longer be money. What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.

I think most readers would say the same. Most would choose Midori. And the protagonist, of course, chooses her in the end. But some part of him is always in the other world and he cannot abandon it. It’s a part of him, an essential part. All human beings have a sickness in their minds....

I just gave them a little scare. A touch of psychological terror. As Joseph Conrad once wrote, true terror is the kind that men feel towards their imagination. (from Super-frog Saves Tokyo)

Nemoj da se sažaljevaš. To rade samo kreteni.

If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.

Eifersucht war – das hatte Tsukuru durch diesen Traum begriffen – das trostloseste Gefängnis, das es auf der Welt gab. Denn es war ein Gefängnis, in das der Gefangene sich gewissermaßen selbst einsperrte. Niemand zwang ihn dazu. Er ging aus freien Stücken hinein, schloss von innen ab und warf den Schlüssel durch das Gitter nach...

Lo que nos hace personas normales es saber que no somos normales.

I never once thought I wanted to be a soldier. I wanted to be a teacher. As soon as I left college, though, they sent me my draft notice, stuck me in officers training, and I ended up on the continent for twelve years. My life went by like a dream.

La mia coscienza sembrava sul punto di offuscarsi da un momento all’altro, ma non potevo perdermi la dolcezza di quel rito di fine giornata. Non c’è nulla che mi piaccia di più di quel breve intervallo di tempo che va da quando mi infilo nel letto a quando mi addormento. Mi porto qualcosa da bere,...

Never in my life had I seen such a slim nothing of a figure eat like such a terror.

We’re on the same wavelength. We’re connected that way, even if I’m away from her.

A strange, terrific force unlike anything I’ve ever experienced is sprouting in my heart, taking root there, growing. Shut up behind my rib cage, my warm heart expands and contracts independent of my will–over and over.

As I suspect is true of many who write for a living, as I write I think about all sorts of things. I don’t necessarily write down what I’m thinking; it’s just that as I write I think about things. As I write, I arrange my thoughts. And rewriting and revising takes my thinking down...

I know exactly what I’m doing, but I just can’t stop. That’s my greatest weakness.

Being with her I feel a pain, like a frozen knife stuck in my chest. An awful pain, but the funny thing is I’m thankful for it. It’s like that frozen pain and my very existence are one.The pain is an anchor, mooring me here.

Everything has boundaries. The same holds true with thought. You shouldn’t fear boundaries, but you should not be afraid of destroying them. That’s what is most important if you want to be free: respect for and exasperation with boundaries.

Don’t blame me. That’s evolution. Evolution’s always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution.

That’s how it is with art. Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o’clock in the morning are incapable of such writing.

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

Miu let age naturally rise to the surface, accepted it for what it was, and made her peace with it.

But you know Hajime, some feelings cause us pain because they remain.

Look at the rain long enough, with no thoughts in your head, and you gradually feel your body falling loose, shaking free of the world of reality. Rain has the power to hypnotize.

The laugh left a bitter taste in our mouths, but we laughed out all the same.

Ordinary imperfect people, always choose similarly imperfect people as friends.

I might have been afraid that if I really loved someone and needed her, one day she might suddenly disappear without a word, and I’d be left all alone.

I feel as if the world is listening for my next thought. But I can’t think of anything. Sorry, but I just can’t think of anything.

I shouted into the phone, but there was no reply. Silence floated up from the receiver like smoke from the mouth of a gun.

My father always told me: ‘Give somebody a hand and he’ll take an arm.

In ancient times, people weren’t just male or female, but one of three types: male/male, male/female, female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangement and never really gave it much a thought. But then God took a knife and cut everybody in...

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

I’m all alone, but I’m not lonely.

Everybody’s got something weird about them.

It was as natural and obvious to me as breathing. So I assumed that everyone else was doing it too. When I realized that everyone else was not doing it — that they couldn’t do it even if they tried — I told myself, ‘I’m different from other people, so the life I live will...

Unless you find the fundamental cause and treat that, the same problem will surface later on in a different form.

The sky both exists and doesn’t exist. It has substance and at the same time doesn’t. And we merely accept that vast expanse and drink it in.

Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that eighteen years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn’t give a damn about the scenery that...

It’s easy to forget things you don’t need anymore.

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.

In ancient times people weren’t just male or female, but one of three types: male/male, male/female, or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangement and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everybody in...

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)

This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: ‘At the time, no one knew what was coming.

There are always far more people in the world who make things worse, rather than help out.