I'm tired of living unable to love anyone. I don't have a single friend - not one. And, worst of all, I can't even love myself. Why is that? Why can't I love myself? It's because I can't love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself.
Haruki MurakamiBut didn't you say you were satisfied with your life?" "Word games," I dismissed. "Every army needs a flag.
Haruki MurakamiA life without pain: it was the very thing I had dreamed of for years, but now that I had it, I couldnโt find a place for myself within it. A clear gap separated me from it, and this caused me great confusion. I felt as if I were not anchored to this world - this world that I had hated so passionately until then; this world that I had continued to revile for its unfairness and injustice; this world where at least I knew who I was. Now the world ceased to be the world, and I had ceased to be me.
Haruki MurakamiBut knowing what I donโt want to do doesnโt help me figure out what I do want to do. I could do just about anything if somebody made me. But I donโt have an image of the one thing I really want to do. Thatโs my problem now. I canโt find the image.
Haruki MurakamiI don't know a whole lot about symbolism. There seems to me to be a potential danger in symbolism. I feel more comfortable with metaphors and similes.
Haruki Murakami