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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

No fundo, os seres humanos não passam de veículos, ou locais de passagem, para os genes. De geração em geração, correm dentro de nós até nos esgotarem, como cavalos de corrida. Os genes não pensam...

What I was chasing in circles must have been the tail of the darkness inside me.

She and I were bound together at the border between life and death. It was like that for us from the start

A morte existe não como contrário da vida mas como parte dela

She was seriously in love, but she never made demands.

The years nineteen and twenty are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you’re that age, it will cause you pain when you’re older.

There are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.

The real world is in a much darker and deeper place than this, and most of it is occupied by jellyfish and things. We just happen to to forget all that. Don’t you agree? Two-thirds...

It’s really difficult to talk about dead people, but it’s even harder to talk about dead young women. It’s because from the time they die, they’ll be young forever. On the other hand, for us,...

Math is like water. It has a lot of difficult theories, of course, but its basic logic is very simple. Just as water flows from high to low over the shortest possible distance, figures can...

Trouble is we end up being worse at saying things well. It’s got to be an inborn fault. Naturally, everyone’s got faults. My biggest fault is that the faults i was born with grow bigger...

Durum semolina, golden wheat wafting in Italian fields. Can you imagine how astonished the Italians would be if they knew that what they were exporting in 1971 was really loneliness

The early autumn sun glinted on the water, an enormous mirror ground to powder and scattered.

Their hearts, lost in thought, slowly tick away time. When we pass each other on the road, we listen to the rhythm of each other’s breathing, and sense the way the other person is ticking...

If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.