People are in constant motion, never stationary. No one knows what will happen next.
A bit of shape and form has disappeared from the world, increasing the amount of nothingness.
I don’t know how to put it, but I just can’t get it through my head that here and now is really here and now. Or that I am really me. It doesn’t quite hit home. It’s always this way. Only much later on does it ever come together. For the last ten years, it’s been like this.
I have a lot more patience for others than I have for myself, and I am much better at bringing out the best in others than in myself. That’s just the kind of person I am. I’m the scratchy stuff on the side of the matchbox.
What’s really important in life is always the things that are secondary.
I think serious readers of books are 5% of the population. If there are good TV shows or a World Cup or anything, that 5% will keep on reading books very seriously, enthusiastically. And if a society banned books, they would go into the forest and remember all the books. So I trust in their existence. I have confidence.
I don’t want to overestimate myself. Basically I’ve been lucky. I’m simply a polite, lucky man. That might be the best way to think of it.
You finally fall asleep. And when you wake up, it’s true. You are part of a brand-new world.
I forgot my eraser,” I told her, “so if you have an extra, could you let me borrow it?” She took her eraser, broke it in two, and gave me half. And smiled broadly. Like the saying goes, in that instant I fell in love.
But there are times in this world when it’s not enough just not to do the wrong thing.
Outside was pitch black. So black I felt morning might never arrive, not for all eternity.
Wakeful nights often give people useless thoughts.
For me, it was a lonely season. Whenever I got home and took off my clothes, I felt as if any second my bones would burst through my skin. Like some unknown force inside me had taken a wrong turn somewhere, and was leading me off in some strange direction to another world. The phone would ring. And I’d think, somebody’s got something to tell somebody else. I almost never got calls myself. There wasn’t anybody who’d have anything to say to me, at least not anybody I’d want to hear from.
Pensar mucho y mal equivale a no pensar.
The new day is almost here, but the old one is still dragging its heavy skirts. Just as ocean water and river water struggle against each other at a river mouth, the old time and the new time clash and blend.
Somewhere inside me, there was still preserved a broad, open space, untouched, for Naoko and no one else.
Why a unicorn? Maybe the unicorn, too, is one of the Men Without Women. I mean, I’ve never seen a unicorn couple. He – it has to be a he, right? – is always alone, sharp horn thrust toward the sky. Maybe we should adopt him as the symbol of Men Without Women, of the loneliness we carry as our burden. Perhaps we should sew unicorn badges on our breast pockets and hats, and quietly parade down streets all over the world. No music, no flags, no ticker tape. Probably.
Our hands were clasped together for ten seconds at most, but to me it felt more like thirty minutes. When she let go of my hand, I was suddenly lost.
The sheep man has his world. I have mine. And you have yours, too. Am I right?
I may have nothing inside me, but what would something be?