Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life and it’d lose even its imperfection.
People need routines. It's like a theme in music. But it also restricts your thoughts and actions and limits your freedom. It structures your priorities and in some cases distorts your logic.
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 anym...
Once I began a book, I couldn’t put it down. It was like an addiction; I read while I ate, on the train, in bed until late at night, in school, where I’d keep the book hidden so I could read during cl...
Not just beautiful, though — the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me. What I’ve up till now, what I’m going to do — they know it all. Nothing gets past...
Not being bored means not having to think about a lot of stupid stuff.
No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That's all.
Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely f...
My arm was not what she needed, but the arm of someone else. My warmth was not what she needed, but the warmth of someone else.
Life is basically unfair. But even in a situation that's unfair, I think it's possible to seek a kind of fairness.
Kumiko and I felt something for each other from the beginning. It was not one of those strong, impulsive feelings that can hit two people like an electric shock when they first meet, but something qui...
Just remember, life is a box of cookies. You know how they’ve got these cookie assortments, and you like some but you don’t like others? And you eat up all the ones you like, and the only ones left ar...
It is as evil as we are positive...the more desperately we try to be good and wonderful and perfect, the more the Shadow develops a definite will to be black and evil and destructive... The fact is th...
It feels like ancient history, said Naoko. But anyhow, sorry about last night. I don't know, I was a bundle of nerves. I really shouldn't have done that after you came here all the way from Tokyo.Neve...
It doesn't matter how old I get, but as long as I continue to live I'll always discover something new about myself.
Is it possible to become friends with a butterfly?It is if you first become a part of nature. You suppress your presence as a human being, stay very still, and convince yourself that you are a tree or...
In this world, there is no absolute good, no absolute evil, the man said. Good and evil are not fixed, stable entities, but are continually trading places. A good may be transformed into an evil in th...
In order to pin down reality as realilty, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created within...
In certain areas of my life, I actively seek out solitude. Especially for someone in my line of work, solitude is, more or less, an inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation...
If I had to say anything it’d be this: Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.