I’m much more interested in whether I reach the goals that I set for myself, so in this sense long-distance running is the perfect fit for a mindset like mine.
I think Kitaru is honestly seeking something. In his own way, at his own pace, very genuinely and directly. It’s just that I don’t think he’s grasped yet what it is. That’s why he can’t make any progress, and that applies to all kinds of things. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it’s not easy to look for it.
Once you do learn about the truth, you end up having to take a certain responsibility for it.
Not everybody is looking for a boyfriend with a sports car.
I cry when I’m lonely. Reiko says it’s good I can cry. But feeling lonely really hurts.
Guns are like cars: you can trust a good used one better than one that’s brand-new.
Tokai couldn’t bring himself to want children like that. His friends all insisted that, when all was said and done, having children was a wonderful thing, but he never could buy this sales pitch. They probably just wanted Tokai to shoulder the same burden they dragged around. They selfishly were convinced that everyone else in the world should be obliged to suffer the way they did.
The feeling of the wind, the sound of rushing water, the sense of sunlight breaking through the clouds, the colors of flowers as the seasons changed – everything around him felt changed, as if they had all been recast.
Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself.
What do you think the most gruelin’ thing about evolution is?” “I don’t know. Tell me,” I said. “It’s being unable to pick and choose. Nobody chooses to evolve. It’s like floods and avalanches and earthquakes. You never know what’s happening until they hit, then it’s too late.” I.
You, after all, are well aware of what it is to become one of the men without women. You are a faintly colored Persian carpet, and loneliness is the indelible stain of Bordeaux. And so your loneliness is brought in from France, and the pain of your wounds from the Middle East. For the men without women, the world is a vast and keen mixture, it is just exactly the far side of the moon.
Soft and silent as a new moon, a smile drifted across her face.
To a greater or lesser extent, everybody’s always being ordered and threatened and pushed around. There may not be anything better we could hope for.
A revelation leaps over the borders of the everyday. A life without revelation is no life at all.
I think of you now mare than ever. It’s raining today.
All through high school and college, his judo coach and older teammates would often say to him, “You have the talent and the strength, and you practice enough, but you just don’t have the desire.” They were probably right. He lacked that drive to win at all costs, which is why he would often make it to the semifinals and the finals but lose the all-important championship match.
What am I always so tense about? Why this desperate struggle just to survive?
Good ones like her are hard to find. And she’s a lot more fragile than she looks.
Lay down your mind and peace will come. A peace deeper than anything you have known.
There’s an upside to passengers too. A guy around 50, always travels on the first train of the day, always used to greet me, he probably thought I’d died until I returned to the job. Yesterday morning when we met, he said: “Alive and well means you’ve still got things to do. Don’t give up the fight!” It’s such an encouragement just to get a cheerful greeting. Nothing comes of hatred.