Pinball Murakami Quotes

Sometimes I feel like a caretaker of a museum -- a huge, empty museum where no one ever comes, and I'm watching over it for no one but myself.

Looking at the ocean makes me miss people, and hanging out with people makes me miss the ocean.

So many dreams, so many disappointments, so many promises. And in the end, they all just vanish.

All things pass. None of us can manage to hold on to anything. In that way, we live our lives.

On any given day, something claims our attention. Anything at all, inconsequential things. A rosebud, a misplaced hat, that sweater we liked as a child, an old Gene Pitney record. A parade of trivia with no place to go. Things that bump around in our consciousness for two or three days then go back to wherever they came from... to darkness. We've got all these wells dug in our hearts. While above the wells, birds flit back and forth.

If you look at things from a distance, most anything looks beautiful.

Me, I've seen 45 years, and I've only figured out one thing. That's this: if a person would just make the effort, there's something to be learned from everything. From even the most ordinary, commonplace things, there's always something you can learn. I read somewhere that they said there's even different philosophies in razors. Fact is, if it weren't for that, nobody'd survive.

There are no truly strong people. Only people who pretend to be strong.

How can those who live in the light of day possibly comprehend the depths of night?

The problem was, I think, that the places I fit in were always falling behind the rimes.

However miserable your situation, there is always something to learn.

We fell silent again. The thing we had shared was nothing more than a fragment of time that had died longe ago.Even so, a faint glimmer of that warm memory still claimed a part of my heart. And when death claim me, no doubt I would walk along by that faint light in the brief instant before being flung once again into the abyss of nothingness

Why do you read books?” he asked. “Why do you drink beer?” I replied without glancing in his direction,

Good question, but no answer. Good questions never have answers.

Sometimes, I imagine how great it would be if we could live our lives without bothering other people.

People with dark hearts have dark dreams. Those whose hearts are even darker can’t dream at all.

An old cat is a good friend to talk to.

This uneasiness comes over me from time to time, and I feel as if I've somehow been pieced together from two different puzzles.

She gave me this look – she might have been watching from a lifeboat as the ship went down. Or maybe it was the other way around.

When it's all over, it'll seem like a dream.

Ascribing meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually living it." -from "Hear the Wind Sing

Then when dusk began to settle he would retrace his steps, back to his own world. And on the way home, a loneliness would always claim his heart. He could never quite get a grip on what it was. It just seemed that whatever lay waiting "out there" was all too vast, too overwhelming for him to possibly ever make a dent in.

Happiness is a warm friendship.

Nah, I shook my head, things that come out of nowhere go back to nowhere, that’s all. We fell silent again. The thing we had shared was nothing more than a fragment of time that had died long ago. Even so, a faint glimmer of that warm memory still claimed a part of my heart. And when death claimed me, no doubt I would walk along by that faint light in the brief instant before being flung once again into the abyss of nothingness.

Things that come out of nowhere go back to nowhere, that's all.

Where there's an entrance, there's got to be an exit. Most things work that way.

Am I happy? All I can say is I guess so. That's pretty much the way it is with dreams.

There can be no meaning in what will someday be lost. Passing glory is not true glory at all.

People are awkward creatures. A lot more awkward than you seem to realize.

We're all wrong, every one of us.

From his shoulder on down, the Rat felt the supple weight of her body. An odd sensation, that weight. This being that could love a man, bear children, grow old, and die; to think one whole existence was in this weight.

Phone calls in the dead of the night never brought good news.

That's when I gave up pinball. When the times comes, everybody gives up pinball. Nothing more to it.

If you can let it go at not understanding, that's the best anyone could expect.

Civilization is communication,” the doctor said. “That which is not expressed doesn’t exist.

Writing honestly is very difficult. The more I try to be honest, the farther my words sink into darkness." -from "Hear the Wind Sing

On any given day, something can come along and steal our hearts. It may be any old thing: a rosebud, a lost cap, a favorite sweater from childhood, an old Gene Pitney record. A miscellany of trivia with no home to call their own. Lingering for two or three days, that something soon disappears, returning to the darkness. There are wells, deep wells, dug in our hearts. Birds fly over them." -from "Pinball, 1973

I could go on like this forever, but would I ever find a place that was meant for me? Like, for example, where? After lengthy considerations, the only place I could think of was the cockpit of a two-seater Kamikaze torpedo-plane. Of all the dumb ideas. In the first place, all the torpedo-planes were scrapped thirty years ago

I didn’t have the vaguest idea of what to do – I couldn’t keep staring at the wall forever, I told myself. But even that admonition didn’t work. A faculty advisor reviewing a graduation thesis would have had the perfect comment: you write well, you argue clearly, but you don’t have anything to say.

Good style, clear argument, but you're not saying anything.

There’s no such thing as a perfect piece of writing. Just as there’s no such thing as perfect despair.

Like the song says, rainy days and Mondays always get ya down.

What we shared was no more than a fragment of a time long dead. Yet memories remained, warm memories that remained with me like lights from the past. And I would carry those lights in the brief interval before death grabbed me and tossed me back into the crucible of nothingness.

One could say that the greatest sins afflicting modern society are the proliferation of lies and silence. We lie through our teeth, then swallow our tongues." -from "Heart the Wind Sing

There are — how do you say — things in this world our philosophy cannot account for.

A person probably couldn't live without pride. But living by pride, alone the prospects were too dark. Way too dark.

The past and the present, might we say, go like this. The future is a maybe. Yet we look back on the darkness that obscures the path that brought us fair, we only come up with another indefinite maybe. The only thing we perceive with any clarity is the present moment, and even that just passes by.

My face, my self, what would they mean to anybody? Just another stiff. So this self of mine passes some other's self on the street — what do we have to say to each other? Hey there! Hi ya! That's about it. Nobody raises a hand. No one turns around to take another look.

Trouble fell like rain from the heavens, and we just couldn't get enough of it. We went around picking up the stuff and cramming our pockets full of it. Even now I can't figure out why we persisted in doing that. Maybe we mistook it for something else.

If a person would just make the effort, there's something to be learned from everything. From even the most ordinary, commonplace things, there's always something you can learn.

Time goes by so damn fast.

If everybody went around understanding each other without asking questions or speaking their mind, they'd never get anywhere.

Each day was a carbon copy of the last. You needed a bookmark to tell one from the other.

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

In any case, suffice it to say I enjoyed hearing about faraway places. I had stocked up a whole store of these places, like a bear getting ready for hibernation. I’d close my eyes, and streets would materialize, rows of houses take shape. I could hear people’s voices, feel the gentle, steady rhythm of their lives, those people so distant, whom I’d probably never know.

While you’re playing yourself out in lonesome dissipation in front of a pinball machine, someone else might be reading through Proust. Still another might be engaged in heavy petting with a girlfriend at a drive-in theater showing of Paths of Courage. The one could well become a writer, witness to the age; the others, a happily married couple. Pinball machines, however, won’t lead you anywhere. Just the replay light. Replay, replay, replay...

He was dead tired, thanks to which, whatever emotions he might have had, simply came and went without gaining a foothold. The Rat began to relax and lay down his empty head on the mingled sounds of the waves and the deejay until sleep crept over him.

No sooner had one season slipped out the door than the next came in by another door. A person might scramble to the closing door and call out, Hey, wait a minute, there’s one last thing I forgot to tell you. But nobody would be there any more. The door shuts tight. Already another season is in the room, sitting in a chair, striking a match to light a cigarette. Anything you forgot to mention, the stranger says, you might as well go ahead and tell me, and if it works out, I’ll get the message through. Nah, it’s okay, you say, it was nothing really. And all around, the sound of the wind. Nothing, really. A season’s died, that’s all.

The world's full of groundless ill will. I'll never understand it, you'll never understand it, but it exists all the same.

Enough with these stupid metaphors. They don't do any good.

it’s even harder to talk about girls who have died young: by dying, they stay young forever.

All things pass. None of us can manage to hold on to anything. In that way, we live our lives." -from "Hear the Wind Sing

There can be no meaning in what will someday be lost. Passing glory is not true glory at all." -from "Pinball, 1973

In the end we all die anyway.

I just wanted to go home. Take a quick bath, have a beer, and sink into my warm bed with my cigarettes and Kant.

There are things in this world you can’t do a damn thing about.” “Like what?” “Like a rotten tooth, for example. One day it just starts aching. No one can ease the pain, no matter how hard they try to comfort you. It makes you furious with yourself. Next thing you know you’re furious with them because they aren’t pissed off with themselves. See how it escalates?

All of us are laboring under the same conditions. It’s like we’re all flying in the same busted airplane. Sure, some of us are luckier than others. Some are tough and some are weak. Some are rich and some poor. But no one’s superman—in that way, we’re all weak. If we own things, we’re terrified we’ll lose them; if we’ve got nothing we worry it’ll be that way forever. We’re all the same. If you catch on to that early enough, you can try to make yourself stronger, even if only a little. It’s okay to fake it. Right? There are no truly strong people. Only people who pretend to be strong.

It had been a long time since I felt the fragrance of summer: the scent of the ocean, a distant train whistle, the touch of a girl's skin, the lemony perfume of her hair, the evening wind, faint glimmers of hope, summer dreams. But none of these were the way they once had been; they were all somehow off, as if copied with tracing paper that kept slipping out of place." -from "Hear the Wind Sing

Each of us had, to a greater or lesser degree, resolved to live according to his or her own system. If another person's way of thinking was too different from mine, it made me mad; too close and I got sad. That's all there was to it.

Each of us had all the troubles we could carry. They rained down on us from the sky, and we raced around in a frenzy to pick them up and stuff them in our pockets. Why we did that stumps me, even now. Maybe we thought they were something else.

The point is, it didn’t even look like my face. It was the face of any twenty-four-year-old guy who might have been sitting across the way on the commuter train. My face, my self, what would they mean to anybody? Just another stiff. So this self of mine passes some other’s self on the street – what do weh ave to say to each other? Hey there! Hi ya!That’s about it. Nobody raises a hand. No one turns around to take another look.

In the end, writing is not a full step toward self-healing, just a tiny, very tentative move in that direction.

At the same time, though, I love writing. Ascribing meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually living it.

I guess because I feel like I can forgive dead people,

If one operates on the principle that everything can be a learning experience, then of course aging needn't be so painful." -from "Hear the Wind Sing

We ourselves will never know much of perpetuity. But we can get a faint inkling of what it’s like.

You keep floudering and never get anywhere.

There is a slight difference between collecting fifty wine labels and collecting fifty pinball machines.

A perfect silence blanketed the floor like a heavy fog. The

All things pass. None of us can manage to hold on to anything. In that way, we live our lives.

There are wells, deep wells, dug in our hearts. Birds fly over them.

There’s no such thing as a perfect piece of writing. Just as there’s no such thing as perfect despair.” So

Why? This world is rife with matters philosophy cannot explain.

It is the inherent right of all writers to experiment with the possibilities of language in every way they can imagine--without that adventurous spirit, nothing new can ever be born.

Lies are terrible things. One could say that the greatest sins afflicting modern society are the proliferation of lies and silence. We lie through our teeth, then swallow our tongues.

On any given day, something can come along and steal our hearts. It may be any old thing: a rosebud, a lost cap, a favorite sweater from childhood, an old Gene Pitney record. A miscellany of trivia with no home to call their own. Lingering for two or three days, that something soon disappears, returning to the darkness. There are wells, deep wells, dug in our hearts. Birds fly over them.

When the sun went down, and touches of blue filtered into the fading afterglow, an orange lamp would light up in the knob of the bell and slowly begin to revolve. The beacon always pinpointed the onset of nightfall exactly. Against the most gorgeous sunsets or in dim drizzling mist, the beacon was ever true to its appointed moment: that precise instant in the alchemy of light and dark when darkness tipped the scales.

It was a senseless, evil thing to do. Still, evil like that is everywhere in this world, mountains of it. I can't understand it, you can't understand it. But it's there, no question. You could say we're surrounded by it.

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 could go on like this forever, but would I ever find a place that was meant for me?

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.

I always felt as if I'd been handed a cardboard box crammed full of monkeys. I'd take the monkeys out of the box one at a time, carefully brush off the dust, give them a pat on the bottom, and send them scurrying off into the fields. I never knew where they went from there.

It’s all so strange. It’s like nothing ever really happened. No, it really happened, only it’s gone. Taking it hard? Nah, I shook my head, things that come out of nowhere go back to nowhere, that’s all. We fell silent again. The thing we had shared was nothing more than a fragment of time that had died long ago. Even so, a faint glimmer of that warm memory still claimed a part of my heart. And when death claimed me, no doubt I would walk along by that faint light in the brief instant before being flung once again into the abyss of nothingness.

The Rat spent many tranquil afternoons settled in his rattan chair. When he began to drift off, he could feel time pass through his body like gently flowing water. As he sat, hours, days, weeks went by. Occasionally, ripples of emotion would lap against his heart as if to remind him of something. When that happened, he closed his eyes, clamped his heart shut, and waited for the emotions to recede. It was only a brief sensation, like the shadows that signal the coming of night. Once the ripple had passed, the quiet calm returned as if nothing untoward had ever taken place.

The air flowed at a leisurely pace, like a flock of birds flying from tree to tree. It skimmed the wooded slopes along the railroad line, crossed the tracks, and passed through the grove without so much as ruffling a leaf. A cuckoo’s sharp cry cut through the gentle light like an arrow and disappeared over the distant ridge. The undulating hills resembled a giant sleeping cat, curled up in a warm pool of time.

I swear with my hand on this room’s most sacred book, the alphabetized telephone directory, to speak the honest truth. Namely, that human existence is a hollow sham. And that, yes, salvation is possible. In the very beginning our hollowness was incomplete. It is we who completed it through unstinting effort, piling one struggle on top of another until every last shred of meaning was worn away. I have no intention of using my writing to detail each painstaking step in this erosion. That would be a waste of my time. Those of you who want to read about that should turn to Romain Rolland’s Jean Christophe. It is all written there.

I didn't know it would get this hot," she said. "It's hot as hell." "Hell is hotter." "Sounds like you've been there." "I've heard it from someone. They make it hotter and hotter till you think you'll go crazy; then they move you someplace cooler for a while. Then when you're recovered a little they move you back again." "So hell it's like a sauna." "Yeah, more or less. But a few can't recover and go totally bonkers." "So what happens to them?" "They get sent up to heaven, where they're forced to paint the walls. You see, the walls in heaven have to be kept a perfect white. As a result, they have to keep painting from dawn till dusk every day. It messes up their respiratory systems big time.

So why are they fighting? Political differences, right?" 208 grilled me. "I guess you could say that." "So their ideas are in conflict?" continued 208. "Yes. But then you could say that there are 1.2 million conflicting ideas in the world. Probably more." "So then it's almost impossible to be friends with anyone?" That was 209. "That's true," I said. "It's just about impossible to be friends." This was my lifestyle in the 1970s. Prophesied by Dostoevsky, consolidated by yours truly.

Come on, man, I told myself, you can’t stare at this damn wall forever. But that didn’t help, either. It was what the professor who oversaw my graduation thesis told me. Good style, clear argument, but you’re not saying anything. That was my problem. Now I had a rare moment alone, and I still couldn’t get a handle on how to deal with myself. It was weird. I had been on my own for years and had assumed I was getting by pretty well. Yet now I couldn’t remember any of it. Twenty-four years couldn’t disappear in a flash. I felt like someone who realizes in the midst of looking for something that they have forgotten what it was. What was the object of my search? A bottle opener? An old letter? A receipt? An earpick?

Why'd you quit?" "I guess I was fed up with the whole thing. But I gave it my best shot. Surprised myself, really. I learned to think about people other than me, but in the end I just got kicked around by a cop. The way I see it, sooner or later everyone returns to his post. Except yours truly. For me, it was a game of musical chairs -- there was no place I could call my own." "So what'll you do now?" The Rat toweled off his feet. "I might write a novel," he said a moment later. "What do you think?" "I think it's a great idea." The Rat nodded. "What kind of novel?" "A good novel. From where I stand, anyway. I doubt I have any special talent for writing, but if I stick with it at least I can become more enlightened. Otherwise, what's the point, right?" "Right." "So the novel will be for myself. Or maybe for the cicadas." "The cicadas?" "Yeah.

Almost nothing can be gained from pinball. The only payoff is a numerical substitution for pride. The loses, however, are considerable. You could probably erect bronze statues of every American president (assuming you are willing to include Richard Nixon) with the coins you will lose, while your lost time is irreplaceable. When you are standing before the machine engaged in your solitary act of consumption, another guy is plowing through Proust, while still another guy is doing some heavy petting with his girlfriend while watching "True Grit" at the local drive-in. They're the ones who may wind up becoming groundbreaking novelists or happily married men. No, pinball leads nowhere. The only result is a glowing replay light. Replay, replay, replay — it makes you think the whole aim of the game is to achieve a form of eternity. We know very little of eternity, although we can infer its existence. The goal of pinball is self-transformation, not self-expression. It involves not the expansion of the ego but its diminution. Not analysis but all-embracing acceptance. If it's self-expression, ego expansion or analysis you're after, the tilt light will exact its unsparing revenge. Have a nice game!