A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else.

Let the world move along as it pleased. If it had any business with him, it would be sure to tell him.

There’s nothing wrong with not looking like something. It just means you don’t fit the stereotype yet.

I realize now that the reality of things is not something you convey to people but something you make.

What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.

Most young people were getting jobs in big companies, becoming company men. I wanted to be individual.

I can be hurt, you know. I can get as exhausted as anybody else. I can feel so bad I want to cry, too.

Writers have to keep on writing if they want to mature, like caterpillars endlessly chewing on leaves.

Strong and independent? I’m neither. I’m just being pushed along by reality, whether I like it or not.

Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action?

Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn't control you--you should control them.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.

Maybe the star doesnt even exist any more.Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.

I'm a writer, not a professional runner. It's fun and it helps me write. I need powerful concentration.

How much do you love me?' Midori asked. 'Enough to melt all the tigers in the world to butter,' I said.

Her smile steps offstage for a moment, then does an encore, all while I'm dealing with my blushing face.

The better you were able to imagine what you wanted to imagine, the farther you could flee from reality.

People with dark souls have nothing but dark dreams. People with really dark souls do nothing but dream.

Adults need more complex narratives. They have their own narratives. The main characters are themselves.

The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.

Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.

Have books ‘happened’ to you? Unless your answer to that question is ‘yes,’ I’m unsure how to talk to you

Reaching the finish line, never walking, and enjoying the race. These three, in this order, are my goals.

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

The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.

Sex is an extremely subtle undertaking, unlike going to the department store on a Sunday to buy a thermos.

Writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.

I couldn't tell wether the hole that opened up inside me was from missing you or from the change of season

[...] Shimamoto had her own little world within her. A world that was for her alone, one I could not enter.

But didn't you say you were satisfied with your life?" "Word games," I dismissed. "Every army needs a flag.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart. [On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning ]

I always write my novels with music (I don't listened to the music seriously.) Music seems to encourage me.

Such wounds to the heart will probably never heal. But we cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever.

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

If you listen to the radio for a whole hour there's maybe one decent song. The rest is mass-produced garbage

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.

As we go through life we gradually discover who we are, but the more we discover, the more we lose ourselves.

I'd made it back to the land of the living. No matter how boring or mediocre a world it might be, this was it.

Those were strange days, now that I look back at them. In the midst of life, everything revolved around death.

Say it before you run out of time. Say it before it's too late. Say what you're feeling. Waiting is a mistake.

Is this what it means to go back to square one? Most likely. He had nothing left to lose, other than his life.

Whoa!" he says with a smile. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepen. "Chicken salad a la George Orwell!

When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

We all die and disappear, but that's because the mechanism of the world itself is built on destruction and loss.

A person's last moments are an important thing. You can't choose how you're born but you can choose how you die.

If you really want to know what's happening here and now, you've got to use your own eyes and your own judgment.

I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?

Everybody has to start somewhere. You have your whole future ahead of you. Perfection doesn't happen right away.

Gazing at the rain, I consider what it means to belong, to become part of something. To have someone cry for me.

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