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e16bf6e
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If you look at things from a distance, most anything looks beautiful.
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Haruki Murakami |
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67b5af5
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I rarely suffer lengthy emotional distress from contact with other people. A person may anger or annoy me, but not for long. I can distinguish between myself and another as beings of two different realms. It's a kind of talent (by which I do not mean to boast: it's not an easy thing to do, so if you can do it, it is a kind of a talent - a special power). When someone gets on my nerves, the first thing I do is transfer the object of my unple..
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Haruki Murakami |
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d6dfa61
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What do I like about math? , When I've got figures in front of me, it relaxes me. Kind of like, everything fits where it belongs.
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Haruki Murakami |
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dd5a04f
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There're many things we don't really know. It's an illusion that we know anything at all. If a group of aliens were to stop me and ask, "Say, bud, how many miles an hour does the earth spin at the equator?" I'd be in a fix. Hell, I don't even know why Wednesday follows Tuesday. I'd be an intergalactic joke"
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Haruki Murakami |
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a9efeb0
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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.
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reality
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Haruki Murakami |
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56b9702
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I stare at her chest. As she breathes, the rounded peaks move up and down like the swell of waves, somehow reminding me of rain falling softly on a broad stretch of sea. I'm the lonely voyager standing on deck, and she's the sea. The sky is a blanket of gray, merging with the gray sea off on the horizon. It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky. Between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.
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Haruki Murakami |
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c7ce7e8
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I really wanted to see you," I said. "And I really wanted to see you, too," she said. "When I couldn't see you any more, I realized that. It was as clear as if the planets all of a sudden lined up in a row for me. I really need you. You're a part of me; I'm a part of you. You know, somewhere--I'm not at all sure where--I think I cut something's throat. Sharpening my knife, my heart a stone."
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Haruki Murakami |
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4c7d44e
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It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It's just as Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibility. Turn this on its head and you could say that where there's no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise. Just as we see with Eichmann.
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Haruki Murakami |
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1cca9a7
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Dias despues le vinieron a la mente las palabras que debio haber dicho. Por algun motivo, las palabras adecuadas siempre llegan demasiado tarde.
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tarde
palabras
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Haruki Murakami |
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dccb62a
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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.
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Haruki Murakami |
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a2864e2
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I stare at this ceaseless, rushing crowd and imagine a time a hundred years from now. In a hundred years everybody here-me included-will have disappeared from the face of the earth and turned into ashes or dust. A weird thought, but everything in front of me starts to seem unreal, like a gust of wind could blow it all away.
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Haruki Murakami |
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98744e3
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One listless day followed another, with nothing to distinguish one from the next. You could have changed the order and no one would have noticed.
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Haruki Murakami |
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f8ccb8d
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It's a waste of time to think about things you can't know,
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Haruki Murakami |
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1528ba9
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The more honest I try to be, the more the right words recede into the distance.
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Haruki Murakami |
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2ddf29d
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You can't choose how you're born but you can choose how you die.
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Haruki Murakami |
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a9ff00c
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It's unfair." As a rule, life is unfair," I said. Yeah, but I think I did say some awful things." To Dick?" Yeah." I pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road and turned off the ignition. "That's just stupid, that kind of thinking," I said, nailing her with my eyes. "Instead of regretting what you did, you could have treated him decently from the beginning. You could've tried to be fair. But you didn't. You don't even have the right t..
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unfairness
regret
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Haruki Murakami |
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d97c7a0
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I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centered, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that ..
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good-intentions
modernism
existential-crisis
japan
novel
introspection
psychology
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Haruki Murakami |
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d830ce2
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She was hearing everything that went on in his heart, like a person who can trace a map with his fingertip and conjure up vivid, living scenery.
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Haruki Murakami |
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94a174d
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In order to pin down reality as realilty, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created within our consciousness, and it is the maintenance of this chain which produces the sensation that we are actually here, that we ourselves exist.
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Haruki Murakami |
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6ce0dd4
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No one in my family, not one of my friends or classmates realized that I was going through life asleep. It was literally true: I was going through life asleep. My body had no more feeling than a drowned corpse. My very existence, my life in the world, seemed like a hallucination. A strong wind would make me think my body was about to be blown to the end of the earth, to some land I had never seen or heard of, where my mind and body would ..
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Haruki Murakami |
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31651d5
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If I had to say anything it'd be this: Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.
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Haruki Murakami |
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d395037
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Anyhow, I took every stitch of clothing off and got out of bed. And I got down on my knees on the floor in the white moonlight. The heat was off and the room must have been cold, but I didn't feel cold. There was some kind of special something in the moonlight and it was wrapping my body in a thin, skintight film. At least that's how I felt. I just stayed there naked for a while, spacing out, but then I took turns holding different parts of..
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moon
moonbathing
moonlight
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Haruki Murakami |
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ddda928
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Actually, I'm extremely dissatisfied with being who I am. It's nothing to do with my looks or abilities or status or any of that. It simply has to do with being me. The situation strikes me as grossly unfair.
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Haruki Murakami |
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8b2f3dc
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Do you know what 'Sputnik' means in Russian? 'Travelling companion'. I looked it up in a dictionary not long ago. Kind of a strange coincidence if you think about it. I wonder why the Russians gave their satellite that strange name. It's just a poor little lump of metal, spinning around the Earth.
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Haruki Murakami |
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7a32605
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All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. We don't live with the mechanical precision of a bank account or by measuring all our lines and angles with rulers and protractors.
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Haruki Murakami |
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55ebc0c
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Just speak your mind honestly. That's the best thing. It may hurt a little sometimes, and someone may get upset, but in the long run, it's for the best.
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Haruki Murakami |
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30cd6eb
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Having a drink in bed while listening to music and reading a book. As precious to me as a beautiful sunset or good clean air.
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Haruki Murakami |
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c53a474
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As I gazed at my reflection I wondered, Where am I headed? Before that, though, the question was Where have I come to? Where is this place? No, before that even I needed to ask, Who the hell am I?
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Haruki Murakami |
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d688313
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I'm not going to get involved in a debate with you. Just remember this: the gods give, and the gods take away. Even if you are not aware of having been granted what you posses, the gods remember what they gave you. They don't forget a thing. You should use the abilities you have been granted with the utmost care.
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Haruki Murakami |
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8516a3f
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Is that what you see in my eyes, that you know nothing about me?" "Nothing is written in your eyes". I replied. "It is written in my eyes and i see the reflection in yours"
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soulmate
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Haruki Murakami |
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31aa7ee
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You like to write. It's the single most important quality for someone who wants to be a writer. But not in itself enough.
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Haruki Murakami |
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7fce798
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A question wells up inside me, a question so big it blocks my throat and makes it hard to breathe. Somehow I swallow it back, finally choosing another.
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memories
murakami
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Haruki Murakami |
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e1a4edc
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Where are you now?' Where was I now? Gripping the receiver, I raised my hand and turned to see what lay beyond the telephone booth. Where was I now? I had no idea. No idea at all. Where was this place? All that flashed into my eyes were the countless shapes of people walking by to nowhere. Again and again, I called out for Midori from the dead center of this place that was no place.
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Haruki Murakami |
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dab80c8
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Properly speaking, should any individual ever have exact, clear knowledge of his own core consciousness?" "I wouldn't know," I said. "Nor would we," said the scientists."
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Haruki Murakami |
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d50c894
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From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value.
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Haruki Murakami |
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a8c0c88
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Why do you read books?" he asked. "Why do you drink beer?" I replied without glancing in his direction,"
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Haruki Murakami |
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f02246a
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Being all alone is like the feeling you get when you stand at the mouth of a large river on a rainy evening and watch the water flow into the sea. Have you ever done that? Stand at the mouth of a large river and watch the water flow into the sea?
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loneliness
rain
river
sea
water
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Haruki Murakami |
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3711af1
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let the wind change direction a little bit, and their cries turned to whispers.
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Haruki Murakami |
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45447f2
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Spending plenty of time on something can be the most sophisticated form of revenge.
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Haruki Murakami |
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e63b9b0
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You tell me there is no fighting or hatred or desire in the Town. That is a beautiful dream, and I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without despair or loss, there is no hope.
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Haruki Murakami |
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fa6cf2c
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Let your body work until it is spent, but keep your mind for yourself.
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mind
work
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Haruki Murakami |
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cd5c10c
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As with marathon runs and lengths of toilet paper, there had to be standards to measure up to.
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Haruki Murakami |
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5c6dedf
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I think certain types of processes don't allow for any variation. If you have to be part of that process, all you can do is transform--or perhaps distort--yourself through that persistent repetition, and make that process a part of your own personality.
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work-ethic
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Haruki Murakami |
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2387998
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What do we talk about? Just ordinary things. What happened today, or books we've read, or tomorrow's weather, you know. Don't tell me you're wondering if people jump to their feet and shout stuff like 'It'll rain tomorrow if a polar bear eats the stars tonight!
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Haruki Murakami |