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75b8349
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People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die.
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memories
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Haruki Murakami |
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b999ddf
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So what's wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?
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Haruki Murakami |
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90d0709
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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.
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reality
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Haruki Murakami |
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b01f27c
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I'm not so weird to me.
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Haruki Murakami |
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544602e
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One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of true harmony.
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Haruki Murakami |
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54113cb
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Not that we were incompatible: we just had nothing to talk about.
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Haruki Murakami |
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6e37d65
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Each person feels pain in his own way, each has his own scars.
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Haruki Murakami |
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30236fc
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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 day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us together, and then about my..
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memory
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Haruki Murakami |
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46bee04
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According to Aristophanes in Plato's The Banquet, in the ancient world of legend there were three types of people
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inspirational
thought-provoking
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Haruki Murakami |
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ce56439
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We're both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We're connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.
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Haruki Murakami |
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fabc9ac
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She's letting out her feelings. The scary thing is not being able to do that. When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you're in big trouble.
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Haruki Murakami |
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a03593e
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Everyone may be ordinary, but they're not normal.
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Haruki Murakami |
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88128ae
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According to Aristophanes in Plato's The Banquet, in the ancient world of legend there were three types of people. In ancient times people weren't simply 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 arrangment and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everyone in half, rig..
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thought-provoking
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Haruki Murakami |
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3147186
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When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.
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library
emotions
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Haruki Murakami |
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1b7d0e8
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For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a "Reserved" sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant. Despite the fact that I was sure I'd never see her again."
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waiting
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Haruki Murakami |
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2bffa96
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There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.
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writing
insightful
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Haruki Murakami |
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c74d2ce
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In a sense, I'm the one who ruined me: I did it myself.
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Haruki Murakami |
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2918c52
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I look up at the sky, wondering if I'll catch a glimpse of kindness there, but I don't. All I see are indifferent summer clouds drifting over the Pacific. And they have nothing to say to me. Clouds are always taciturn. I probably shouldn't be looking up at them. What I should be looking at is inside of . Like staring down into a deep well. Can I see kindness there? No, all I see is my own nature. My own individual, stubborn, uncooperative ..
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fugu
shoelaces
geese
beer
cambridge
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Haruki Murakami |
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09b45f2
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People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they'll go to any length to live longer. But I don't think that's the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the ..
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meaning
running
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Haruki Murakami |
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faa8ad4
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So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Watanabe: Wow, and did your search pay off? M: That's the hard part. I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough.
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Haruki Murakami |
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2aa787e
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Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once t..
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parenting
teaching
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Haruki Murakami |
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6f73239
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Something inside me had dropped away, and nothing came in to fill the cavern.
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Haruki Murakami |
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1a39056
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Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn't control you--you should control them.
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Haruki Murakami |
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d7bb351
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Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it's time to drink.
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Haruki Murakami |
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07a031e
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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.
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Haruki Murakami |
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94e279c
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Things outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you're stepping into the labyrinth inside.
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Haruki Murakami |
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02d5bb0
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For both of us, it had simply been too enormous an experience. We shared it by . Does this make any sense?
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Haruki Murakami |
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89c2dff
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These days I just can't seem to say what I mean [...]. I just can't. Every time I try to say something, it misses the point. Either that or I end up saying the opposite of what I mean. The more I try to get it right the more mixed up it gets. Sometimes I can't even remember what I was trying to say in the first place. It's like my body's split in two and one of me is chasing the other me around a big pillar. We're running circles around it...
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Haruki Murakami |
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7e0f26e
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I am nothing. I'm like someone who's been thrown into the ocean at night, floating all alone. I reach out, but no one is there. I call out, but no one answers. I have no connection to anything.
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Haruki Murakami |
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48dce51
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The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. ... [But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings.
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metaphor
life
wisdom
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Haruki Murakami |
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5ddf1e8
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Have you ever had that feeling--that you'd like to go to a whole different place and become a whole different self?
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Haruki Murakami |
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fdb06e9
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There are ways of dying that don't end in funerals. Types of death you can't smell.
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Haruki Murakami |
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060b766
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Instead of things I'm good at, it might be faster to list the things I can't do. I can't cook or clean the house. My room's a mess, and I'm always losing things. I love music, but I can't sing a note. I'm clumsy and can barely sew a stitch. My sense of direction is the pits, and I can't tell left from right half the time. When I get angry, I tend to break things. Plates and pencils, alarm clocks. Later on I regret it, but at the time I can'..
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Haruki Murakami |
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417ebbd
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No matter where i go, i still end up me. What's missing never changes. The scenery may change, but i'm still the same incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that i can never satisfy. I think that lack itself is as close as i'll come to defining myself.
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Haruki Murakami |
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51c65e8
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As we go through life we gradually discover who we are, but the more we discover, the more we lose ourselves.
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life
inspirational
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Haruki Murakami |
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b94e0a7
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Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world?
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Haruki Murakami |
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37fa890
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What I want is for the two of us to meet somewhere by chance one day, like, passing on the street, or getting on the same bus.
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Haruki Murakami |
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a1a3da3
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I've always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I'm wrong, but I won't change.
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Haruki Murakami |
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2a44ef7
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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.
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Haruki Murakami |
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bc32738
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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.
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unhappiness
life
misfortune
stories
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Haruki Murakami |
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95a6ba9
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As I see it, you are living with something that you keep hidden deep inside. Something heavy. I felt it from the first time I met you. You have a strong gaze, as if you have made up your mind about something. To tell you the truth, I myself carry such things around inside. Heavy things. That is how I can see it in you.
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Haruki Murakami |
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845ed64
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The light of morning decomposes everything.
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Haruki Murakami |
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caab333
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If they invent a car that runs on stupid jokes, you could go far.
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Haruki Murakami |
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e102a2a
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Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.
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Haruki Murakami |