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Quotes by Japanese Authors
"I didn't have the vaguest idea of what to do " I couldn't keep staring at the wall forever, I told myself. But even that admonition didn't work. A faculty advisor reviewing a graduation thesis would have had the perfect comment: you write well, you argue clearly, but you don't have anything to say."
"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."
"There's no short-cut in life but with right knowledge, you can fast-track things to come to pass."
"Your purpose has the capacity to employ and enrich you for a lifetime."
"Still, though, I can't be sure if the zoo as I recall it was really like that. How can I put it? I sometimes feel that it's too vivid, if you know what I mean. And when I start having thoughts like this, the more I think about it, the less I can tell how much of the vividness is real and how much of it my imagination has invented."
"Practise really seeing yourself in the mirror. This is NOT about examining yourself. This is about you looking beyond your external image to connect with your soul. Look upon yourself with complete appreciation and acceptance. You are so beautiful."
"I don't believe in failure. Whenever you take action and do something, irrespective of the outcome, you have succeeded by simply doing and trying. The universe rewards action. So believe in yourself and do whatever it is you want to do."
"People do change. And no matter how close we once were, and how much we opened up to each other, maybe neither of us know anything substantial about the other."
"Haida stopped and glanced at the clock on the wall. Then he looked at Tsukuru. He was, of course, Haida the son, but Haida the father has been the same age in his story, and so the two of them began to overlap in Tsukuru's mind. It was an odd sensation, as if the two distinct temporalities had blended into one. Maybe it wasn't the father who had experienced this, but the son. Maybe Haida was just relating it as if his father had experienced it, when in reality he was the one who had. Tsukuru couldn't shake this illusion."
"I believe the anthropogenic effect for climate change is still only one of the hypotheses to explain the variability of climate."
"Yes, you ARE important enough; and yes, your needs and wants DO matter."
"From the girl who sat before me now...surged a fresh and physical life force. She was like a small animal that has popped into the world with the coming of spring. Her eyes moved like an independent organism with joy, laughter, anger, amazement, and despair. I hadn't seen a face so vivid and expressive in ages, and I enjoyed watching it live and move."
"I have always loved Naoko, and I still loved her. But there is a decisive finality to what exists between Midori and me."
"Discipline your sexuality for it has the proclivity to cause a productivity that can influence now and posterity."
"Some people today are wandering generalities instead of meaningful specifics because they have failed to discover and mine the wealth of potentials in them."
"The best things occur when you challenge yourself and face your fears. If you think of your greatest achievements and take an inventory of the times you have demonstrated to yourself (and others) just how strong you are, you will notice it has never been while remaining within your comfort zone doing things that are easy and familiar to you."
"Be wary of a self-professed 'nice guy'. Anyone who is always going around saying they are 'just trying to be nice' are most often, anything but nice. -If you're truly kind and loving, you don't have to 'try'. It comes naturally."
"The difference between a conventional counsellor and an empowerment counsellor is that a conventional therapist will allow you to dwell in your pit of misery for months, years and possibly even decades; whereas an empowerment counsellor will challenge you to recognise that your past pains and seemingly negative experiences are the very key to accessing your greatest self."
"The betterment of a community directly depends on the betterment of lives in that Community."
"I stayed in the town until earlyevening, and when the sun began to sink, my heart did too. This is your last chance to goback, I told myself. Once it gets completely dark, you might never be able to leave here. Iwent home on the same buses that had brought me there. I arrived before seven, and no onenoticed that I had run away."
"The mind is strong. It survives, even without thought. Even with everything taken away, it holds a seed-your self."
"Even now, whenever I think of her, I envision a quiet Sunday morning. A gentle, clear day, just getting under way. No homework to do, just a Sunday when you could do what you wanted. She always gave me this kick-back-and-relax, Sunday-morning kind of feeling."
"In any case, suffice it to say I enjoyed hearing about faraway places. I had stocked up a whole store of these places, like a bear getting ready for hibernation. I'd close my eyes, and streets would materialize, rows of houses take shape. I could hear people's voices, feel the gentle, steady rhythm of their lives, those people so distant, whom I'd probably never know."
"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."
"Whenever you hear yourself or others telling you you cannot do something, do that particular something, and notice how quickly everyone shuts the hell up."
"His mind floated in the amniotic fluid of memory, listening for echoes of the past. His father, meanwhile, had no idea that such a vivid scene was burned into Tengo's brain or that, like a cow in the meadow, Tengo was endlessly regurgitating fragments of the scene to chew on, a cud from which he obtained essential nutrients. Father and son: each was locked in a deep, dark embrace with his secrets."
"Our experiences always teach us something. If the experience is 'bad', then the lesson is even more powerful and meaningful. Every unfortunate incident makes us stronger and better equipped to handle new challenges."
"Character is never built in a classroom, it is developed through the circumstances of life."
"The truth may make you bitter, but it must make you better."
"When you're always scheming about ways to make money, it's like a part of you is lost."
"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."
"Each "way of thinking" has its own shape and color, which wax and wane like the moon."
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