Haruki Murakami

“There’s no such thing as perfect writing. Just like there’s no such thing as perfect despair.”

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. 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 of 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 moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

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 be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

All alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who’s lost his compass and his map. Is this what it means to be free? I don’t know, and I give up thinking about it.

“I forget my name,” the cat said. “I had one, I know I did, but somewhere along the line I didn’t need it anymore. So it’s slipped my mind.”
“I know. It’s easy to forget things you don’t need anymore.

ot that I totally follow you. Cats can get by without names. We go by smell, shape, things of this nature. As long as we know these things, there’re no worries for us.”
“Nakata understands completely. But you know, Mr. Otsuka, people don’t work that way. We need dates and names to remember all kinds of things.”
The cat gave a snort. “Sounds like a pain to me.”
“You’re absolutely right. There’s so much we have to remember, it is a pain. Nakata has to remember the name of the Governor, bus numbers.

Your problem is that your shadow is a bit—how should I put it? Faint. I thought this the first time I laid eyes on you, that the shadow you cast on the ground is only half as dark as that of ordinary people.”

ve always been impressed by your insights, and I find the worldview that runs through all of your publications very convincing—namely that as individuals each of us is extremely isolated, while at the same time we are all linked by a prototypical memory. There have been times in my own life that I felt exactly this way.

A child who’s innately capable.

A dark, omnipresent pool of water.