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Quotes by Japanese Authors
"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."
"Everything was too sharp and clear, so that I could never tell where to start- the way a map that shows too much can sometimes be useless."
"Next she turned the gun upward and thrust the muzzle into her mouth. Now it was aimed directly at her cerebrum-- the gray labyrinth where consciousness resided."
"Wasn't much of a life anyway. Wasn't much of a brain.""But didn't you say you were satisfied with your life?""Word games," I dismissed. "Every army needs a flag."
"If the attainment of peace is the ultimate objective of all statesmen, it is, at the same time, something very ordinary, closely tied to the daily life of each individual."
"Like you're riding a train at night across some vast plain, and youcatch a glimpse of a tiny light in a window of a farmhouse. In aninstant it's sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes. Butif you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you, justbarely for a few moments."
"Not being able to find the right words at crucial times is one of my many problems."
"April ended and May came along, but May was even worse than April. In the deepening spring of May, I had not choice but to recognize the trembling of my heart. It usually happened as the sun was going down. In the pale evening gloom, when the soft fragrance of magnolias hung in air, my heart would swell without warning, and tremble, and and lurch with a stab of pain. I would try clamping my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, and wait for it to pass. And it would pass - but slowly, taking its own time, and leaving a dull ache behind."
"Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to sleep through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there- to the edge of the world. There's something you can't do unless you get there."
"The darkness behind my closed eyelids was like the cloud-covered sky, but the gray was somewhat deeper. Every few minutes, someone would come and paint over the gray with a different-textured gray - one with a touch of gold or green or red. I was impressed with the variety of grays that existed. Human beings were so strange. All you had to do was sit still for ten minutes, and you could see this amazing variety of grays."
"Many are the women who can take their clothes off seductively, but women who can charm as they dress?"
"We are the sum total of our choices."
"He felt as if his heart had dried up. I needed her he thought. I needed someone like her to fill the void inside me. But I wasn't able to fill the void inside her. Until the bitter end, the emptiness inside her was hers alone."
"Once your get your hopes up, your mind starts acting on its own. And when your hopes are dashed you get dissapointed, and dissapointment leads to a feeling of helplessness. You get careless and let your guard down. And right now, she though, that si the last thing I can afford."
"I've never once thought about how I was going to die, she said. "I can't think about it. I don't even know how I'm going to live."
"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 and exasperation with boundaries."
"She tried to think about what lay ahead, but soon gave up. 'Words turn into stone,' Nimit had told her. She settled deep into her seat and closed her eyes. All at once the image came to her of the sky she had seen while swimming on her back. And Erroll Garner's 'I'll Remember April.' Let me sleep, she thought. Just let me sleep. And wait for the dream to come."
"Telling lies is a really terrible thing. These days, lies and silence are the two greatest sins in human society you might say. In reality, we tell lots of lies, and we often break into silence. However, if we were constant;y talking year-round, and telling only the truth truth would probably lose some of its value."
"The role of a story was, in the broadest terms, to transpose a single problem into another form. ... It was like a piece of paper bearing the indecipherable text of a magic spell."
"Luka fisik memang diperlukan saat mempelajari sesuatu yang penting dalam hidup."
"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."
"In his or her own way, everyone I saw before me looked happy. Whether they were really happy or just looked it, I couldn't tell. But they did look happy on this pleasant early afternoon in late September, and because of that I felt a kind of loneliness new to me, as if I were the only one here who was not truly part of the scene."
"Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas - none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bare it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't."
"Each "way of thinking" has its own shape and color, which wax and wane like the moon."
"It is very simple, actually. It is because you and Tengo were so powerfully drawn to each other."
"Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value."
"The ocean was one of the greatest things he had ever seen in his life-bigger and deeper than anything he had imagined. It changed its color and shape and expression according to time and place and weather. It aroused a deep sadness in his heart, and at the same time it brought his heart peace and comfort."
"Not just beautiful, though--the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me."
"She gave me this look " she might have been watching from a lifeboat as the ship went down. Or maybe it was the other way around."
"Life is long, and sometimes cruel. Sometimes victims are needed. Someone has to take on that role. And human bodies are fragile, easily damaged. Cut them, and they bleed."
"Precipitate as weather, she appeared from somewhere, then evaporated, leaving only memory."
"Strictly speaking, it might not be a dream. It was reality, but a reality imbued with all the qualities of a dream. A different sphere of reality, where - at a special time and place - imagination had been set free."
"One guy yelled at me, 'You stupid bitch, how do you live like that with nothing in your brain?' Well, that did it. I wasn't going to put up with that. Ok, I'm not so smart. I'm working class. But it's the working class that keeps the world running, and it's the working classes that get exploited. What kind of revolution is it that just throws out big words that working-class people can't understand? What kind of crap social revolution is that? I mean, I'd like to make the world a better place, too. If somebody's really being exploited, we've got to put a stop to it. That's what I believe, and that's why I ask questions. Am I right, or what?"
"Ships passing in broad daylight."
"Between goal and success, there is one critical thing - perseverance: it is the fundamental belief to always succeed, the determination to turn goal to gold, the greatness to never give up, the foresight to dream that enables you to make it happen."
"Being alive, if you had to define it, meant emitting a variety of smells."
"It's just that the chaos has changed shape. The giraffe and the bear have traded hats, and the bear's switched scarves with the zebra."
"The real world-where I probably could never be happy, and never get anywhere."
"He sometimes wondered if she had become involved with him just so that she could cry in someone's arms. Maybe she can't cry alone, and that's why she needs me."
"All's well that ends well.''Assuming there's an end somewhere,' Aomame said.Tamaru formed some short creases near his mouth that were faintly reminiscent of a smile. 'There has to be an end somewhere. It's just that nothing's labeled "This is the end." Is the top rung of a ladder labeled "This is the last rung. Please don't step higher than this'?"Aomame shook her head.'It's the same thing,' Tamaru said.Aomame said, 'If you use common sense and keep your eyes open, it becomes clear enough where the end is.'Tamaru nodded. 'And even if it doesn't' -- he made a falling gesture with his finger -- 'the end is right there."
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