My grandpa used to say that things never work out like you think they will, but that’s what makes life interesting, and that makes sense. If the Chunichi Dragons won every single game, who’d ever watch baseball?
A special kind of hunger. And what might that be? I can present it here in the form of a cinematic image. One, I am in a little boat, floating on a quiet sea. Two, I look down, and in the water I see the peak of a volcano thrusting up from the ocean floor. Three, the peak seems pretty close to the water’s surface, but just how close I cannot tell. Four, this is because the hypertransparency of the water interferes with the perception of distance.
I’m a soul in transition, and a soul in transition is formless.
The world kept moving on; I alone was at a standstill.
She was yours to begin with. Now, maybe, she’s where she belongs.
One uproar after another, every day. Like the whole world’s turned upside down. Don’t you feel bad that you’re missing out? The world isn’t that easily turned upside down, Haida replied. It’s people who are turned upside down. I don’t feel bad about missing that.
I’d swallow some whiskey and listen to the waves while I thought about Naoko. It was too strange to think that she was dead and no longer part of this world. I couldn’t absorb the truth of it. I couldn’t believe it. I had heard the nails being driven into the lid of her coffin, but I still couldn’t adjust to the fact that she had returned to nothingness.
But the moon remained silent; it told no stories. All it did was embrace the heavy past with cool, measured detachment. On the moon there was neither air nor wind. Its vacuum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed. No one could unlock the heart of the moon.
I think you just need to be honest with yourself, as much as you can. All you can do is be as honest and free as you can.
So-called ‘great’ people don’t talk about their family troubles.
En la vida de los hombres hay un punto a partir del cual ya no podemos retroceder. Y, en algunos casos, existe otro a partir del cual ya no podemos seguir avanzando.
She still smiles from time to time, definitely a charming smile, but it’s always limited somehow, a smile that never goes beyond the moment. A high, invisible wall surrounds her, keeping people at arm’s length.
There are hammers in the world that need to pound in nails, and nails that need to be pounded by hammers.
We’ve all got something just a little bit strange.
What few sounds there were echoed with special clarity.
Well, you can try to rationalize it all you want, you can invent all kinds of noble-sounding pretexts, but in the end, a scam is a scam.
My memory remained fixed on the dead rather than the living.
Oshima once used the term hollow men. Well, that’s exactly what I’ve become. There’s a void inside me, a blank that’s slowly expanding, devouring what’s left of who I am. I can hear it happening. I’m totally lost, my identity dying. There’s no direction where I am, no sky, no ground.
I love no one and am loved by no one.
Just a lingering memory.