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Dance Dance Dance

Book by Haruki Murakami · 36 quotes · Murakami, Death, Love

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Dance Dance Dance Quotes

“Latter-day capitalism. Like it or not, it's the society we live in. Even the standard of right and wrong has been subdivided, made sophisticated. Within good, there's fashionable good and unfashionable good, and ditto for bad. Within fashionable good, there's formal and then there's casual; there's hip, there's cool, there's trendy, there's snobbish. Mix 'n' match. Like pulling on a Missoni sweater over Trussardi slacks and Pollini shoes, you can now enjoy hybrid styles of morality. It's the way of the world -- philosophy starting to look more and more like business administration.”

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“Forget about them. If you don't feel like going to school, don't. Don't force yourself. School can be a real nightmare. I know. You have these brown-nosing idiots for classmates and these teachers who act like they own the world. Eighty percent of them are deadbeats or sadists, or both. Plus all those ridiculous rules. The whole system's designed to crush you, and so the goodie-goodies with no imagination get good grades. I bet that hasn't changed a bit.”

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“People die all the time. Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely. It's too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands after the person dies. Personally, I don't buy it." Yuki leaned against the car door. "But that's real hard, isn't it?" she said. "Real hard," I said. "But it's worth trying for.”

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“Proverò a parlare di me. A presentarmi con parole mie. L'ho fatto tante volte quando ero a scuola. Ognuno di noi a turno doveva mettersi di fronte alla nuova classe e presentarsi. Era una cosa che odiavo. O meglio, più che odiarla non ne vedevo il senso. Che potevo saperne io di me stesso? Ero proprio io quel personaggio che riuscivo a percepire con la mia coscienza? Proprio come quando uno non riconosce la propria voce incisa su un registratore, mi chiedevo sempre se l'immagine che percepivo di me stesso non fosse un'immagine distorta che mi ero fabbricato su misura. Ogni volta che ero costretto a presentarmi davanti alla classe, mi alzavo in piedi con una sensazione di disagio. Mi sembrava di essere un truffatore. Per questa ragione cercavo sempre di dire solo fatti oggettivi, evitando interpretazioni o commenti: Ho un cane, mi piace nuotare, non mi piace il formaggio eccetera. Malgrado ciò provavo lo stesso la sensazione di star parlando dei fatti immaginari di una persona immaginaria. Anche quando ascoltavo gli altri, mi sembrava che parlassero tutti di qualcuno che non erano loro. Tutti vivevamo respirando l'area irreale di un mondo irreale.”

SelfSincerity
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“- Che cosa devo fare? - Finora tu hai perso molte cose. Molte cose preziose. Il problema non è sapere di chi è la colpa. Il problema è che tu attaccavi sempre qualcosa di tuo a tutte le cose che perdevi. Non avresti dovuto. Avresti dovuto tenere qualcosa da parte per te, invece di lasciarla andare via con il resto. Così ti sei consumato a poco a poco. Perché? Perché l'hai fatto? - Non lo so. - Forse era più forte di te. O forse eri spinto a farlo da... una specie di destino, non mi viene la parola... - Tendenza? - Sì, tendenza. Anche se tu ricominci da capo, e riesci a rimettere a posto la tua vita, è probabile che tu rifaccia le stesse cose. E' una tendenza. E quando si supera un certo punto, non si può più tornare indietro. E' troppo tardi.”

SelfLost Things
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“My peak? Would I even have one? I hardly had had anything you could call a life. A few ripples. some rises and falls. But that's it. Almost nothing. Nothing born of nothing. I'd loved and been loved, but I had nothing to show. It was a singularly plain, featureless landscape. I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pacman, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.”

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“It's unfair." As a rule, life is unfair," I said. Yeah, but I think I did say some awful things." To Dick?" Yeah." I pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road and turned off the ignition. "That's just stupid, that kind of thinking," I said, nailing her with my eyes. "Instead of regretting what you did, you could have treated him decently from the beginning. You could've tried to be fair. But you didn't. You don't even have the right to be sorry.”

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“Along the way I stopped into a coffee shop. All around me normal, everyday city types were going about their normal, everyday affairs. Lovers were whispering to each other, businessmen were poring over spread sheets, college kids were planning their next ski trip and discussing the new Police album. We could have been in any city in Japan. Transplant this coffee shop scene to Yokohama or Fukuoka and nothing would seem out of place. In spite of which -- or, rather, all the more because -- here I was, sitting in this coffee shop, drinking my coffee, feeling a desperate loneliness. I alone was the outsider. I had no place here. Of course, by the same token, I couldn't really say I belonged to Tokyo and its coffee shops. But I had never felt this loneliness there. I could drink my coffee, read my book, pass the time of day without any special thought, all because I was part of the regular scenery. Here I had no ties to anyone. Fact is, I'd come to reclaim myself.”

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“Quizá tampoco pueda decirse que soy un tipo corriente, pero raro no soy. Soy una persona extremadamente cabal, a mi manera. Muy directa. Directa como una flecha. Soy yo mismo de un modo sumamente natural e inevitable. Dado que es un hecho evidente, no me importa demasiado lo que los demás piensen de mí. La manera en que los demás me ven no me atañe. Más bien, eso es algo que sólo les atañe a ellos”

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