Murakami Short Quotes

Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end.

He appeared before me and departed. We were not able to speak to or touch each other. But in that short interval, he transformed many things inside me. He literally stirred my mind and body the way a spoon stirs a cup of cocoa, down to the depths of my internal organs and my womb.

Strange and mysterious things, though, aren't they - earthquakes? We take it for granted that the earth beneath our feet is solid and stationary. We even talk about people being 'down to earth' or having their feet firmly planted on the ground. But suddenly one day we see that it isn't true. The earth, the boulders, that are supposed to be solid, all of a sudden turn as mushy as liquid - From the short story "Thailand

In the spring of her twenty-second year, Sumire fell in love for the first time in her life. An intense love, a veritable tornado sweeping across the plains—flattening everything in its path, tossing things up in the air, ripping them to shreds, crushing them to bits. The tornado’s intensity doesn’t abate for a second as it blasts across the ocean, laying waste to Angkor Wat, incinerating an Indian jungle, tigers and everything, transforming itself into a Persian desert sandstorm, burying an exotic fortress city under a sea of sand. In short, a love of truly monumental proportions. The person she fell in love with happened to be 17 years older than Sumire. And was married. And, I should add, was a woman. This is where it all began, and where it all ended. Almost.

A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake and shout, 'Hey,this is no time for sleeping! You can't forget me, there's still more to write!' Impelled by that voice, I would find myself writing a novel. In this sense, too, my short stories and novels connect inside me in a very natural, organic way.

They were each like a mirror for the other, reflecting the changes in themselves.

I learned there were lots of realities in the world.

My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them, and how I felt when I did. Short stories are like guideposts to my heart...

[...] he made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least 30 years. "That's the only kind of book I can trust", he said. "It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

She was short, and even in a good mood she talked like she was half a step away from picking a fight.

This life is nothing but a short, painful dream.

Kindness was one of the things presently (or permanently) in short supply in the world.

Life: I’ll never understand it.

If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden. The two processes complement each other, creating a complete landscape that I treasure. The green foliage of the trees casts a pleasant shade over the earth, and the wind rustles the leaves, which are sometimes dyed a brilliant gold. Meanwhile, in the garden, buds appear on the flowers, and colorful petals attract bees and butterflies, reminding us of the subtle transition from one season to the next.

People are weak when they are alone.

It was a short one-paragraph item in the morning edition.

It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

All's well that ends well.' 'Assuming there's an end somewhere,' Aomame said. Tamaru formed some short creases near his mouth that were faintly reminiscent of a smile. 'There has to be an end somewhere. It's just that nothing's labeled "This is the end." Is the top rung of a ladder labeled "This is the last rung. Please don't step higher than this'?" Aomame shook her head. 'It's the same thing,' Tamaru said. Aomame said, 'If you use common sense and keep your eyes open, it becomes clear enough where the end is.' Tamaru nodded. 'And even if it doesn't' -- he made a falling gesture with his finger -- 'the end is right there.

I find writing novels a challenge, writing stories a joy. If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.

It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature... but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature, but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short. (...) If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. That's the world of hicks and slobs. Real people would be ashamed of themselves doing that.

These guys are fakes. All they've got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they're so proud of, while sticking their hanse up their skirts. And when they graduate,they cut their hair short and march off to work for Mitsubishi or IBM or Fuji Bank. They marry pretty wives who've never read Marx and have kids they give fancy names to that are enough to make you puke. Smash what educational-industrial complex? Don't make me laugh!

It all seemed like a short dream. But I knew very well that it wasn’t. If this was a dream, then the world I’m living in itself must all be a dream.

To him, they looked like shadows that his wife had left behind. Size 7 shadows of his wife hung there in long rows, layer upon layer, as if someone had gathered and hung up samples of the infinite possibilities (or at least the theoretically infinite possibilities) implied in the existence of a human being.

These were both nothing more than a pair of minor incidents that happened in my trivial little life. Short side trips along the way. Even if they hadn’t happened, I doubt my life would have wound up much different from what it is now. But still, these memories return to me sometimes, traveling down a very long passageway to arrive. And when they do, their unexpected power shakes me to the core. Like an autumn wind that gusts at night, swirling fallen leaves in a forest, flattening the pampas grass in fields, and pounding hard on the doors to people’s homes, over and over again.

He appeared before me and departed. We were not able to speak to or touch each other. But in that short interval, he transformed many things inside me. He literally stirred my mind and body the way a spoon stirs a cup of cocoa, down to the depths of my internal organs and my womb.

Tengo knew that time could become deformed as it moved forward. Time itself was uniform in composition, but once consumed, it took on a deformed shape. One period of time might be terribly heavy and long, while another could be light and short. Occasionally the order of things could be reversed, and in the worst cases order itself could vanish entirely. Sometimes things that should not be there at all might be added onto time. By adjusting time this way to suit their own purposes, people probably adjusted the meaning of their existences. In other words, by adding such operations to time, they were able—but just barely—to preserve their own sanity. Surely, if a person had to accept the time through which he had just passed uniformly in the given order, his nerves could not bear the strain. Such a life, Tengo felt, would be sheer torture.

As usual, Junko thought about Jack London's 'To Build a Fire.' It was the story of a man traveling alone through the snowy Alaskan interior and his attempts to light a fire. He would freeze to death unless he could make it catch. The sun was going down. Junko hadn't read much fiction, but that one short story she had read again and again, ever since her teacher had assigned it as an essay topic during summer vacation of her first year in high school. The scene of the story would always come vividly to mind as she read. She could feel the man's fear and hope and despair as if they were her own; she could sense the very pounding of his heart as he hovered on the brink of death. Most important of all, though, was the fact that the man was fundamentally longing for death. She knew that for sure. She couldn't explain how she knew, but she knew it from the start. Death was really what he wanted. He knew that it was the right ending for him. And yet he had to go on fighting with all his might. He had to fight against an overwhelming adversary in order to survive. What most shook Junko was this deep-rooted contradiction. The teacher ridiculed her view. 'Death is really what he wanted? That's a new one for me! And strange! Quite 'original,' I'd have to say.' He read her conclusion aloud before the class, and everybody laughed. But Junko knew. All of them were wrong. Otherwise how could the ending of the story be so quiet and beautiful?

All’s well that ends well.” “Assuming there’s an end somewhere,” Aomame said. Tamaru formed some short creases near his mouth that were faintly reminiscent of a smile. “There has to be an end somewhere. It’s just that nothing’s labeled ‘This is the end.’ Is the top rung of a ladder labeled ‘This is the last rung. Please don’t step higher than this’?

It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature, but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

It rained for a short time while I was running, but it was a cooling rain that felt good.

I could never live with this man, she thought. I could never get inside his heart. But I might be able to die with him." - ( From the short story "Landscape in Flatiron")

But as often is the case with short people—he never grew past five foot three—once he made up his mind about something, no matter how trivial it might be, he never backed down.

He was a far more voracious reader than me, but he made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least 30 years. "That's the only kind of book I can trust," he said. "It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

Come to think of it, she seemed awfully sure about those ten minutes: it was the first thing out of her mouth. As if nine minutes would be too short or eleven minutes too long. Like cooking spaghetti al dente.

...he made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least 30 years. "That's the only kind of book I can trust," he said. "It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

Tengo knew that time could become deformed as it moved forward. Time itself was uniform in composition, but once consumed, it took on a deformed shape. One period of time might be terribly heavy and long, while another could be light and short. Occasionally the order of things could be reversed, and in the worst cases order itself could vanish entirely.

there’s an accumulation of technical know-how, so short of some grievous error nothing’s ever totally ruined. But you can’t stockpile vision and creativity—they’re more perishable, like fresh fruit. Making it big is no guarantee of success. There have been lots of companies that made it big, only to disappear.

Changing into shorts, he took a cold can of beer from the refrigerator and drank it, standing, while he heated a large pot of water. Before the water boiled, he stripped all the leathery edamame pods from the branch, spread them on a cutting board, and rubbed them all over with salt. When the water boiled, he threw them into the pot.

She had extremely short hair and wore dark sunglasses and a white cotton minidress.

He was tall with lanky arms and legs and short hair. He wore gold-framed glasses and he had a receding hairline which made the top of his head as smooth as a freshly laid egg.

I knew little about short story writing then so it was rough going, but I did find the experience very memorable.

This was one of the problems with math department graduates. When it came to areas they weren’t interested in, their memory was surprisingly short-lived.

His mind a blank, he fell asleep for a short nap.

I felt defenseless when my hair got short all of a sudden. As if somebody had thrown me into a crowd all naked.

If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.

When I first came to the Town—it was in the spring—the beasts had short fur of varying colors.

It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short

He was a far more voracious reader than I, but he made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least thirty years. "That's the only kind of book I can trust," he said. "It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added," but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

One more nice thing about short stories is that you can create a story out of the smallest details -an idea that springs up in your mind, a word, an image, whatever. In most cases it's like jazz improvisation, with the story taking me where it wants to. And another good point is that with short stories you don't have to worry about failing. If the idea doesn't work out the way you hoped it would, you just shrug your shoulders and tell yourself that they can't all be winners. Even with masters of the genre like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver -even Anton Chekhov- not every short story is a masterpiece. I find this a great comfort. You can learn from your mistakes (in other words, those you can't call complete success) and use that in the next story you write.

Maybe I am just an empty, futile person, he thought. But it was precisely because there was nothing inside of me that these people could find, even if for a short time, a place where they belonged. Like a nocturnal bird seeks a safe place to rest during the day in a vacant attic. The birds like that empty, dim, silent place. If that were true, then maybe he should be happy he was hollow.

After a short breather, Reiko crushed her cigarette out and picked her guitar up again. She played “Penny Lane,” “Blackbird,” “Julia,” “When I’m 64,” “Nowhere Man,” “And I Love Her,” and “Hey Jude.

A minute is a minute, an hour is an hour. We need to cherish it. We need to deftly reconcile ourselves with time, and leave behind as many precious memories as we can - that's what's the most valuable.

Maybe I am just an empty , futile person , he thought . But it was precisely because there was nothing inside of me that these people could find , if even for a short time , a place where they belonged .

These guys are a bunch of phonies. All they’ve got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they’re so proud of and sticking their hands up their skirts. And when they’re seniors, they cut their hair short and go trooping to work for Mitsubishi or IBM or Fuji Bank. They marry pretty wives who’ve never read Marx and have kids they give fancy new names to that are enough to make you puke.

Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end. Whenever she came in here, Aomame felt as if she had lost all sense of time.

In 1926 Japan’s Taisho Emperor died, and the era name was changed to Showa. It was the beginning of a terrible, dark time in this country, too. The short interlude of modernism and democracy was ending, giving way to fascism.

But even if it ended badly, and you were hurt, I think it was a good thing for you to have met them. It's not very often that people become that close. And when you think of five people having that sort of connection, well, it's nothing short of miraculous.

In Murakami's short story 'The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day,' the main character is a writer. In describing the act of writing to a tightrope walker, he says, 'What a writer is *supposed* to do is observe and observe and observe again, and put off making judgments to the last possible moment.' I think that is a beautiful description of writing; it lets the world be, but also there is a moment, finally, of some kind of opinion. There is that moment, but to hold it off is a lovely and worthwhile goal.

But as often is the case with short people—he never grew past five foot three—once he made up his mind about something, no matter how trivial it might be, he never backed down. And he was bothered by illogical rules and by teachers who couldn’t meet his exacting

Picture this: Short forearms with five fingers, but singularly huge hind legs with four toes, the fourth of which is immensely overdeveloped, while the second and third are extra tiny and fused together . . . that`s a description of the feet of a kangaroo. Ha, ha, ha. Uh, moving on to the topic of sex.

But still, even for a short time, I'd like to be a normal Nakata. Up until now there was never anything in particular I wanted to do. I always did what people told me as best I could. Maybe that just became a habit. But now I want to go back to being normal. I want to be a Nakata with his own ideas, his own meaning.

These were both nothing more than a pair of minor incidents that happened in my trivial little life. Short side trips along the way. Even if they hadn’t happened, I doubt my life would have wound up much different from what it is now. But still, these memories return to me sometimes, traveling down a very long passageway to arrive.

But it was precisely because there was nothing inside of me that these people could find, if even for a short time, a place where they belonged. Like a nocturnal bird seeks a safe place to rest during the day in a vacant attic. The birds like that empty, dim, silent place. If that were true, then maybe he should be happy he was hollow.

My girlfriend showed up on Wednesday and we spent the afternoon making love. The constant creaking of my old bed really cracked her up. “It’s going to fall to pieces before long,” she predicted during a pause in our exertions. “There’ll be nothing left but splinters—we won’t be able to tell if they’re wood or pretzel sticks.” “Maybe we should try to make love more quietly.” “Maybe Captain Ahab should have hunted sardines,” she said. I thought about that for a moment. “Are you saying some things in this world can’t be changed?” “Kind of.” A short time later, we were back on the rolling seas, in pursuit of the great white whale. Some things really can’t be changed so easily.

Le mal du pays.” The quiet, melancholy music gradually gave shape to the undefined sadness enveloping his heart, as if countless microscopic bits of pollen adhered to an invisible being concealed in the air, ultimately revealing, slowly and silently, its shape. This time the being took on the shape of Sara—Sara in her mint-green short-sleeved dress. The ache in his heart returned. Not an intense pain, but the memory of intense pain. What did you expect? Tsukuru asked himself. A basically empty vessel has become empty once again. Who can you complain to about that? People come to him, discover how empty he is, and leave. What’s left is an empty, perhaps even emptier, Tsukuru Tazaki, all alone. Isn’t that all there is to it?

It was a sunny Sunday morning in spring when I got the call from an editor at the literary journal Gunzo telling me that Hear the Wind Sing had been short-listed for their Prize for New Writers. Almost a year had passed since the season opener at Jingu Stadium, and I had already turned thirty. It was around eleven a.m., but I was still fast asleep, having worked very late the night before. I picked up the receiver, but I was so groggy I had no idea at first who was on the other end or what he was trying to say. To tell the truth, by that time I had quite forgotten having sent Hear the Wind Sing to Gunzo. Once I had finished the manuscript and put it in someone else’s hands, my desire to write had completely subsided. Composing it had been, so to speak, an act of defiance—I had written it very easily, just as it came to me—so the idea that it might make the short list had never occurred to me. In fact, I had sent them my only copy. If they hadn’t selected it, it probably would have vanished forever. I probably never would have written another novel. Life is strange, when you think about it.

He was a far more voracious reader than me, but he made it a rule to never touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least 30 years. "That's the only kind of book I can trust," he said. "It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading a book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

He was a far more voracious reader than me, but he made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least 30 years. "That's the only kind of book I can trust," he said. "It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

Maybe I am just an empty, futile person, he thought. But it was precisely because there was nothing inside of me that these people could find, if even for a short time, a place where they belonged. Like a nocturnal bird seeks a safe place to rest during the day in a vacant attic. The birds like that empty, dim, silent place. If that were true, then maybe he should be happy he was shallow.

In Tokyo he longed to return to his hometown as soon as he could, even if only for a short time, to see his friends again. At that point Nagoya was the place he needed to go back to. He shuttled back and forth between two different places for a little over a year. But then, without warning, the cycle was broken. After this, he no longer had a place to go, or a place to which he could return.

Think about it,” the old man said. “Close your eyes again, and think it all through. A circle that has many centers but no circumference. Your brain is made to think about difficult things. To help you get to a point where you understand something that you didn’t understand at first. You can’t be lazy or neglectful. Right now is a critical time. Because this is the period when your brain and your heart form and solidify.

cover. In her sunglasses and short sleeves, Amé seemed oblivious to the glare and heat, although several trails of sweat had stained the neck of her shirt. Maybe it wasn’t the sun. Maybe it was concentration, or mental diffusion. Ten minutes went by, apparently not registering with her. The passage of time was not a practical component in her life. Or if it was, it wasn’t high on her list of priorities. It was different for me. I had a plane to catch.

So that’s when it hit me. These guys are fakes. All they’ve got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they’re so proud of, while sticking their hands up their skirts. And when they graduate, they cut their hair short and march off to work for Mitsubishi or IBM or Fuji Bank. They have pretty wives who’ve never read Marx and have kids they give fancy new names that are enough to make you puke. Smash what educational-industrial complex? Don’t make me laugh!

Nevertheless, based on my own experience, I have found that the occasions when conclusions must be drawn are far less numerous than we tend to assume. Indeed, the times when judgments are truly necessary—whether in the short or the long run—are few and far between. That’s the way I feel, anyway. This means that when I read the paper or watch the news on TV, I have a hard time swallowing the reporters’ rush to give opinions on anything and everything. “Come on, guys,” I feel like saying, “what’s the big hurry?

And every night I would think of you. Now that I can no longer see you, I realize how much I needed you. School is incredibly boring, but as a matter of self-discipline I am going to all my classes and doing all the assignments. Everything seems pointless since you left. I’d like to have a nice, long talk with you. If possible, I’d like to visit your sanatorium and see you for several hours. And, if possible, I’d like to go out walking with you side by side the way we used to. Please try to answer this letter, even a short note, I don’t care.” I

Le mal du plays.” The quiet, melancholy music gradually gave shape to the undefined sadness enveloping his heart, as if countless microscopic bits of pollen adhered to an invisible being concealed in the air, ultimately revealing, slowly and silently, its shape. This time the being took on the shape of Sara—Sara in her mint-green short-sleeved dress. The ache in his heart returned. Not an intense pain, but the memory of intense pain. What did you expect? Tsukuru asked himself. A basically empty vessel has become empty once again. Who can you complain to about that? People come to him, discover how empty he is, and leave. What’s left is an empty, perhaps even emptier, Tsukuru Tazaki, all alone. Isn’t that all there is to it?

I read it, too,” Komatsu said after a short pause. “Right after you called me. The writing is incredibly bad. It’s ungrammatical, and in some places you have no idea what she’s trying to say. She should go back to school and learn how to write a decent sentence before she starts writing fiction.” “But you did read it to the end, didn’t you?” Komatsu smiled. It was the kind of smile he might have found way in the back of a normally unopened drawer. “You’re right, I did read it all the way through—much to my own surprise. I never read these new writer prize submissions from beginning to end. I even reread some parts of this one. Let’s just say the planets were in perfect alignment. I’ll grant it that much.” “Which means it has something, don’t you think?

Tell me about yourself," Midori said. "What about me?" "Hmm, I don't know, what do you hate?" "Chicken and VD and barbers who talk too much." "What else?" "Lonely April nights and lacy telephone covers." "What else?" I shook my head. "I can't think of anything else." "My boyfriend - which is to say, my ex-boyfriend - had all kinds of things he hated. Like when I wore too-short skirts, or when I smoked, or how I got drunk too quickly, or said disgusting things, or criticized his friends. So if there's anything about me you don't like, just tell me, and I'll fix it if I can." "I can't think of anything," I said after giving it some thought. "There's nothing." "Really?" "I like everything you wear, and I like what you do and say and how you walk and how you get drunk. Everything." "You mean I'm really OK just the way I am?" "I don't know how you could change, so you must be fine the way you are." "How much do you love me?" Midori asked. "Enough to melt all the tigers in the world to butter," I said. "Far out," she said with a hint of satisfaction.

Barthes constructed his theory of what he called “myth,” describing essentially the same thing as we mean here by “narrative.” Barthes argues that modern, industrialized societies are governed in large part by such myths, constructed by each society’s political arm and disseminated via the mass media (the political arm’s propaganda machine) as commonsensical, therefore as absolutely real. For Barthes, myth is always political, always constructed, and at the same time always constitutive of our view of the world, and yet myth nearly always seeks to masquerade as something timeless, eternal, and “natural.” He says: Semiology has taught us that myth has the task of giving a historical intention a natural justification, and making contingency appear eternal. . . . The world enters language as a dialectical relation between activities, between human actions; it comes out of myth as a harmonious display of essences. A conjuring trick has taken place; it has turned reality inside out, it has emptied it of history and has filled it with Nature, it has removed from things their human meaning so as to make them signify a human insignificance. The function of myth is to empty reality: it is, literally, a ceaseless flowing out, a hemorrhage, or perhaps an evaporation, in short, a perceptible absence.42

To make a fresh start, the first thing I had to do was get rid of my stack of manuscript paper and my fountain pen. As long as they were sitting in front of me, what I was doing felt like “literature.” In their place, I pulled out my old Olivetti typewriter from the closet. Then, as an experiment, I decided to write the opening of my novel in English. Since I was willing to try anything, I figured, why not give that a shot? Needless to say, my ability in English composition didn’t amount to much. My vocabulary was severely limited, as was my command of English syntax. I could only write in simple, short sentences. Which meant that, however complex and numerous the thoughts running around my head, I couldn’t even attempt to set them down as they came to me. The language had to be simple, my ideas expressed in an easy-to-understand way, the descriptions stripped of all extraneous fat, the form made compact, everything arranged to fit a container of limited size. The result was a rough, uncultivated kind of prose. As I struggled to express myself in that fashion, however, step by step, a distinctive rhythm began to take shape. Since I was born and raised in Japan, the vocabulary and patterns of the Japanese language had filled the system that was me to bursting, like a barn crammed with livestock. When I sought to put my thoughts and feelings into words, those animals began to mill about, and the system crashed.

You are a totally pathetic, historical example of the phallocentric, to put it mildly." "A pathetic, historical example," Oshima repeats, obviously impressed. By his tone of voice he seems to like the sound of that phrase. "In other words you're a typical sexist, patriarchic male," the tall one pipes in, unable to conceal her irritation. "A patriarchic male," Oshima again repeats. The short one ignores this and goes on. "You're employing the status quo and the cheap phallocentric logic that supports it to reduce the entire female gender to second-class citizens, to limit and deprive women of the rights they're due. You're doing this unconsciously rather than deliberately, but that makes you even guiltier. You protect vested male interests and become inured to the pain of others, and don't even try to see what evil your blindness causes women and society. I realize that problems with restrooms and card catalogs are mere details, but if we don't begin with the small things we'll never be able to throw off the cloak of blindness that covers our society. Those are the principles by which we act." "That's the way every sensible woman feels," the tall one adds, her face expressionless. [...] A frozen silence follows. "At any rate, what you've been saying is fundamentally wrong," Oshima says, calmly yet emphatically. "I am most definitely not a pathetic, historical example of a patriarchic male." "Then explain, simply, what's wrong with what we've said," the shorter woman says defiantly. "Without sidestepping the issue or trying to show off how erudite you are," the tall one adds. "All right. I'll do just that—explain it simply and honestly, minus any sidestepping or displays of brilliance," Oshima says. "We're waiting," the tall one says, and the short one gives a compact nod to show she agrees. "First of all, I'm not a male," Oshima announces. A dumbfounded silence follows on the part of everybody. I gulp and shoot Oshima a glance. "I'm a woman," he says. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't joke around," the short woman says, after a pause for breath. Not much confidence, though. It's more like she felt somebody had to say something. Oshima pulls his wallet out of his chinos, takes out the driver's license, and passes it to the woman. She reads what's written there, frowns, and hands it to her tall companion, who reads it and, after a moment's hesitation, gives it back to Oshima, a sour look on her face. "Did you want to see it too?" Oshima asks me. When I shake my head, he slips the license back in his wallet and puts the wallet in his pants pocket. He then places both hands on the counter and says, "As you can see, biologically and legally I am undeniably female. Which is why what you've been saying about me is fundamentally wrong. It's simply impossible for me to be, as you put it, a typical sexist, patriarchic male." "Yes, but—" the tall woman says but then stops. The short one, lips tight, is playing with her collar. "My body is physically female, but my mind's completely male," Oshima goes on. "Emotionally I live as a man. So I suppose your notion of being a historical example may be correct. And maybe I am sexist—who knows. But I'm not a lesbian, even though I dress this way. My sexual preference is for men. In other words, I'm a female but I'm gay. I do anal sex, and have never used my vagina for sex. My clitoris is sensitive but my breasts aren't. I don't have a period. So, what am I discriminating against? Could somebody tell me?

Now, I stood beside him ticking through the past few months of success and failure. Toni Cade Bambara and Ishiguro, yes, all of Murakami, yes, Philip Roth, James Baldwin and Colson Whitehead (Get out. Read these a hundred times). Yaa Gyasi, yes, Rachel Kushner, yes, and W. G. Sebald, but no more mysteries because he complains that he becomes compulsive. A month ago, I gave him Denis Johnson’s Angels, which he liked well enough. He tried Tree of Smoke and excoriated Johnson for enervating him with the evidence of hard research, although, he said, he could see where in fact the book was pretty good. I had then pressed Train Dreams into his hands. He came back and faced me, teeth gritted. ‘What else you got by this guy?’ Which told me he’d been extremely moved. This lasted a week. He has now finished all of Johnson. We are in trouble. If I sell him a book he dislikes, my favorite customer will return with an injured air, his voice cheated and tattered. What shall it be? I pull The Beginning of Spring, by Penelope Fitzgerald, off the shelf. He grumpily buys it. Much later that day, just before the store closes, Dissatisfaction returns. The Beginning of Spring is a short book, after all. He shuts his hands violently on a copy of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Blue Flower, and bears it away.

Everyone’s death should be mourned. Even if just for a short time.

Brian Koppelman mentioned that he considers Haruki Murakami the world’s best writer of fiction. To boot, Murakami is an excellent long-distance runner. Here is what Murakami has to say about running, which can be applied to anything: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

There are two types of drinkers: those who drink to enhance their personalities, and those who sought to take something away.

This was one of the problems with math department graduates. When it came to areas they weren't interested in, their memory was surprisingly short-lived.

I mean, public libraries like this one were always short of money, so building even the tiniest of labyrinths had to be beyond their means.

Có một lần giữa đêm, tớ chợt thức giấc. Tớ không nhớ chính xác lúc mấy giờ. Chắc là hai hay ba, tầm đấy. Mấy giờ cũng không quan trọng đến thế. Giữa đêm, chỉ một mình tớ, xung quanh chẳng có ai. Cậu hình dung được không? Chỉ toàn là bóng tối, chẳng thể thấy được gì. Chẳng thể nghe được gì. Tiếng kim đồng hồ tích tắc đếm giờ cũng không. Có lẽ đồng hồ đã chết. Rồi đột nhiên tớ cảm thấy như mình bị cô lập, bị chia cách, xa xôi đến không ngờ, với mọi người tớ biết, với mọi chỗ tớ quen. Tớ nhận ra chẳng ai trong thế giới rộng lớn này yêu thương tớ nữa, chẳng ai bắt chuyện với tớ, tớ đã trở thành kiểu người mà chẳng ai muốn nhớ đến. Tớ có thể cứ thế biến mất mà chắc không ai để ý. Tớ có cảm giác như mình bị nhốt vào một cái hộp sắt dày và chìm sâu xuống đáy đại dương. Sức ép khiến tim tớ đau nhói, cảm giác như cơ thể tớ bị xé toạc làm đôi. Cậu có hiểu không?” - (Concerning the Sound of a Train Whistle in the Night, or On the Efficiency of Fiction)

Here is what Murakami has to say about running, which can be applied to anything: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, “Man, this hurts, I can’t take it anymore.” The “hurt” part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.

She glanced around the bar. “What a wonderful place,” she said. “Quiet, clean, and calm—very you.” A short silence followed. But there’s nothing here that really moves you: Kino imagined that these were the words she wanted to say.

I waited for the instrument—fashioned from a unicorn horn—to blow at twilight. Moments before the sun set the horn would sound—one long note, followed by three short ones. That was the rule. In the gathering dusk,