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Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing direction. You change direction, but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no
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And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You’ll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t
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The facts and techniques or whatever they teach you in class isn’t going to be very useful in the real world, that’s for sure. Let’s face it, teachers are basically a bunch of morons. But you’ve got to remember this: you’re running away from home. You probably won’t have any chance to go to school any more, so like it or not you’d better absorb whatever you can while you’ve got the chance. Become like a sheet of blotting paper and soak it all in. Later on you can work out what to keep and what to unload.
In travelling, a companion, in life, compassion’,”
When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out from between their pages – a special odour of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers.
There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect.”
assume you’re aware of this, but cats are creatures of habit. Usually they live very ordered lives, and unless something extraordinary happens they generally try to keep to their routine. What might disrupt this is either sex or an accident – one of the two.”
You know what they say about how the size of your stomach can adjust to the amount of food you eat?
a bad habit – awfully hard to get rid of once you get them.”
Cats are powerless, weak little creatures that injure easily. We don’t have shells like turtles, nor wings like birds. We can’t burrow into the ground like moles or change colour like a chameleon. The world has no idea how many cats are injured every day, how many of us meet a miserable end.
this world is a terribly violent place. And nobody can escape the violence. Please keep that in mind. You can’t be too cautious. The same holds true for cats as for human beings.”
There aren’t any photos of her left. I remember her smell, her touch, but not her face.”
“I have my sleeping bag with me,” I tell her, “so if it’s no bother I’ll just crash out in a corner.” I take my tightly rolled-up sleeping bag out of my backpack, spread it out and fluff it up.
Just like wke up sid wherr he live with Konkan and has a sleeping bag.
as individuals each of us is extremely isolated, while at the same time we are all linked by a prototypical memory.
We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past, like ancient stars that have burned out, are no longer in orbit about our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn. New styles, new information, new technology, new terminology … But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us for ever, like a touchstone.
I’m not a fast reader to begin with. I like to linger over each sentence, enjoying the style. If I don’t enjoy the writing, I stop.
works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason – or at least they appeal to certain types of people. Just like you’re attracted to Soseki’s The Miner. There’s something in it that draws you in, more than more fully realised novels like Kokoro or Sanshiro. You discover something about that work that tugs at your heart – or maybe we should say that the work discovers you. Schubert’s Sonata in D Major is like that.”
You’ll appreciate it in time. People soon get tired of things that aren’t boring, but not of what is boring. What’s that all about. For me, I might have the leisure to be bored, but not to grow tired of something. Most people can’t distinguish between the two.”
“But solitude comes in different varieties. What’s waiting for you might be a little unexpected.”
It’s all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It’s just as Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibility. Turn this on its head and you could say that where there’s no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise. Just as we see with Eichmann.
In dreams begin responsibility.
how many other things haven’t I noticed in the world, things I know nothing about? I suddenly feel helpless, completely powerless.
For a long while I stare at this strange organ that, most of the time, has a mind of its own and thinks thoughts not shared by my brain.
You’re afraid of imagination. And even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the responsibility that begins in dreams. But you have to sleep, and dreams are a part of sleep. When you’re awake you can suppress imagination. But you can’t suppress dreams.
Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.
This might seem an outrageous choice, but consider this: most choices we make in life are equally outrageous.”
“You can’t look too far ahead. Do that and you’ll lose sight of what you’re doing and stumble.
Like flowers scattered in a storm, man’s life is one long farewell, as they say.”
Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what’s going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in,
Until a minute ago it felt so real, but now it seems imaginary. Just a few steps is all it takes for everything associated with it to lose all sense of reality.
There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes.
“Kafka, in everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward any more. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.”
“Only people who’ve been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars.
what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls ‘hollow men’.
Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe. Of course it’s important to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form and continue to thrive.
Experience had taught him it was better not to let on that he didn’t know how to read. Because when he did, people stared at him as though he was some kind of monster.
“People who look normal and live a normal life – they’re the ones you have to watch out for.”
you try to use your head to think about things, people don’t want to have anything to do with you.”
his mind, time passed very slowly. Or barely at all.
Man doesn’t choose fate. Fate chooses man. That’s the basic world view of Greek drama. And the sense of tragedy – according to Aristotle – comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist’s weak points but from his good qualities.
Time’s rules don’t apply here. Time expands, then contracts, all in tune with the stirrings of the heart.
Sad to say, there aren’t any cases of a living spirit emerging to fulfil some logical premise or bring about world peace.”
Symbolism and meaning are two separate things. I think she found the right words by bypassing procedures like meaning and logic. She captured words in a dream, like delicately catching hold of a butterfly’s wings as it flutters around. Artists are those who can evade the verbose.”
“As long as there’s such a thing as time, everybody’s damaged in the end, changed into something else. It always happens, sooner or later.”
“But if you knew you might not be able to see it again tomorrow, everything would suddenly become special and precious, wouldn’t it?”
‘The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.’
God only exists in people’s minds. Especially in Japan, God’s always been kind of a flexible concept.
“Listen, every object’s in flux. The earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil – they’re all fluid and in transition. They don’t stay in one form or in one place for ever. The whole universe is like some big FedEx box.”
“What Chekhov was getting at is this: necessity is an independent concept. It has a different structure from logic, morals or meaning. Its function lies entirely in the role it plays. What doesn’t play a role shouldn’t exist. What necessity requires does need to exist. That’s what you call dramaturgy. Logic, morals or meaning don’t have anything to do with it. It’s all a question of relationality. Chekhov understood dramaturgy very well.”
“Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s only a natural feeling.
