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2eda5e3
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Her pupils have taken on a lonely hue, like grey clouds reflected in a calm lake.
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Haruki Murakami |
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13a48da
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I guess I don't really understand you yet,' I said. 'I'm not all that smart. It takes me a while to understand things. But if I do have time, I will come to understand you -- better than anyone else in the world ever can.
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Haruki Murakami |
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60bb1b7
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I've been clinging to this world like a discarded shell of an insect stuck to a branch, about to be blown off forever by a gust of wind.
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hopelessness
loneliness
life
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Haruki Murakami |
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1270cca
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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.
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stretching
murakami
japanese
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Haruki Murakami |
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626fbfb
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But still," Ayumi said, "it seems to me that this world has a serious shortage of both logic and kindness." "You may be right," Aomame said, "But it's too late to trade it in for another one."
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world
wisdom
logic
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Haruki Murakami |
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0221963
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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.
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synchronicity
serendipity
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Haruki Murakami |
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6c458de
|
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."
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murakami
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Haruki Murakami |
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7256fc2
|
All things pass. None of us can manage to hold on to anything. In that way, we live our lives.
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Haruki Murakami |
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ccf507c
|
It feels like everything's been decided in advance that I'm following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesn't matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose my sense of who I am. It's like my identity's an orbit that I've strayed far away from, and that really hurts. But more than that, it scares me. Just thinking about it makes me flinch.
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Haruki Murakami |
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924ed5c
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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.
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Haruki Murakami |
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f796c21
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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.
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science
friction
mood
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Haruki Murakami |
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5f3fca0
|
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.
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youth
morality
books
life
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Haruki Murakami |
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d5d06da
|
The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts.
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Haruki Murakami |
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fcb7f55
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A deserted library in the morning - there's something about it that really gets to me. All possible words and ideas are there, resting peacefully.
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Haruki Murakami |
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5a205ca
|
If there's any guy crazy enough to attack me, I'm going to show him the end of the world -- close up. I'm going to let him see the kingdom come with his own eyes. I'm going to send him straight to the southern hemisphere and let the ashes of death rain all over him and the kangaroos and the wallabies.
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girl-power
confidence
death
strength
kingdom-come
wallabies
kangaroos
ashes
end-of-the-world
badass
attack
threat
self-defense
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Haruki Murakami |
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a279f50
|
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.
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lifestyle
wine
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Haruki Murakami |
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ef1fcd4
|
An empty shell. Those were the first words that sprang to mind. .... Something incredibly important - .. - had disappeared from Miu for good. Leaving behind not life, but its absence
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Haruki Murakami |
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7a47f82
|
People with places to go and people with no place to go; people with a purpose and people with no purpose; people trying to hold time back and people trying to urge it forward
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Haruki Murakami |
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14750a5
|
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."
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Haruki Murakami |
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8d87c3d
|
Another person's life is that person's life. You can't take responsibility.
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Haruki Murakami |
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105c847
|
The majority of people dismiss those things that lie beyond the bounds of their own understanding as absurd and not worth thinking about. I myself can only wish that my stories were, indeed, nothing but incredible fabrications. I have stayed alive all these years clinging to the frail hope that these memories of mine were nothing but a dream or a delusion. I have struggled to convince myself that they never happened. But each time I tried t..
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Haruki Murakami |
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d5fe488
|
I can never say what I want to say, it's been like this for a while now. I try to say something but all I get are wrong words - the wrong words or the exact opposite words from what I mean. I try to correct myself, and that only makes it worse. I lose track of what I was trying to say to begin with. It's like I'm split in two and playing tag with myself. One half is chasing this big, fat post. The other me has the right words, but this can'..
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Haruki Murakami |
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c43cc68
|
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.
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norwegian-wood
|
Haruki Murakami |
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7a10873
|
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.
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Haruki Murakami |
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074941f
|
This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: At the time, no one knew what was coming.
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Haruki Murakami |
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56ad395
|
Once I began a book, I couldn't put it down. It was like an addiction; I read while I ate, on the train, in bed until late at night, in school, where I'd keep the book hidden so I could read during class. But I had almost no desire to talk with anyone about the experience I gained through books and music. I felt happy just being me and no one else.
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Haruki Murakami |
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cc25b47
|
I always say--a prejudice on my part, I'm sure--you can tell a lot about a person's character from his choice of sofa. Sofas constitute a realm inviolate unto themselves. This, however, is something that only those who have grown up sitting on good sofas will appreciate. It's like growing up reading good books or listening to good music. One good sofa breeds another good sofa; one bad sofa breeds another bad sofa. That's how it goes. There ..
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Haruki Murakami |
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cce8e90
|
It's pretty thin, the wall separating healthy confidence and unhealthy Pride.
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Haruki Murakami |
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8a6a8dc
|
Hey Kizuki, I thought, you're not missing a damn thing. This world is a piece of shit. The assholes are earning their college credits and helping to create a society in their own disgusting image.
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Haruki Murakami |
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aeb0e24
|
But tomorrow I'll be a different person, never again the person I was. Not that anyone will notice after I'm back in Japan. On the outside nothing will be different. But something inside has burned up and vanished. Blood has been shed, and something inside me is gone. Head down, without a word, that makes its exit. The door opens; the door shuts. The light goes out. This is the last day for the person I am right now. The very last twiligh..
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Haruki Murakami |
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57d41af
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The world follows its own course. Each possesses his own thoughts, each treads his own path. So it is with your mother, and so it is with your starling. As it is with everyone. The world follows its own course.
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thoughts
life
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Haruki Murakami |
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d937f20
|
From a distance, most things look beautiful.
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Haruki Murakami |
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5e31a5e
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You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have.
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Haruki Murakami |
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43f59e5
|
The ones with no imagination are always the quickest to justify themselves.
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Haruki Murakami |
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b805fcf
|
Latter-day capitalism. Like it or not, it's the society we live in. Even the standard of right and wrong has been subdi-vided, made sophisticated. Within good, there's fashionable good and unfash-ionable good, and ditto for bad. Within fashionable good, there's formal and then there's casual; there's hip, there's cool, there's trendy, there's snobbish. Mix 'n' match. Like pulling on a Missoni sweater over Trussardi slacks and Pollini shoes,..
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Haruki Murakami |
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f799560
|
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)
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lies
feelings
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Haruki Murakami |
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68619ee
|
I go by the gut. I might not appear to have any talent but I've got plenty of gut instinct.
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haruki murakami |
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e8fe8ea
|
You have to make an effort to always look at the good side, always think about the good things. Then you've got nothing to be afraid of. If something bad comes up, you do more thinking at that point.
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Haruki Murakami |
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00642b6
|
I am here, alone, at the end of the world. I reach out and touch nothing."."
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Haruki Murakami |
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d462f2c
|
I'm the kind of person who has to totally commit to whatever I do.
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|
Haruki Murakami |
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435daf3
|
Silence. How long it lasted, I couldn't tell. It might have been five seconds, it might have been a minute. Time wasn't fixed. It wavered, stretched, shrank. Or was it me that wavered, stretched, and shrank in the silence? I was warped in the folds of time, like a reflection in a fun house mirror.
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time
silence
warped
shrinking
wavering
seconds
reflections
mirrors
surreal
|
Haruki Murakami |
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181e83a
|
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."
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Haruki Murakami |
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0753c16
|
Thinking about spaghetti that boils eternally but is never done is a sad, sad thing.
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spaghetti
|
Haruki Murakami |
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db9ef2b
|
I live my life you live yours. If you're clear about what u want then you can live anyway you please. I don't give a damn what people say. They can be reptile food for all I care.
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Haruki Murakami |