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.
Haruki MurakamiI myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven't belonged to any company or any system. It isn't easy to live like this in Japan.
Haruki MurakamiIโve never once thought about how I was going to die,โ she said. โI canโt think about it. I donโt even know how Iโm going to live.
Haruki MurakamiMere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o'clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me.
Haruki MurakamiYour heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: Thatโs it. Thatโs my heart.
Haruki MurakamiI always write my novels with music (I don't listened to the music seriously.) Music seems to encourage me.
Haruki MurakamiSo this was how secrets got started, I thought to myself. People constructed them little by little. I had not consciously intended to keep May Kasahara a secret from Kumiko. My relationship with her was not that big a deal: whether I mentioned it or not was of no consequence. Once it had flown down a certain delicate channel, however, it had become cloaked in the opacity of secretiveness, whatever my original intention had have been.
Haruki Murakami