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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Book by Haruki Murakami · 50 quotes · Life, Japanese Literature, Love

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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Quotes

“The darkness behind my closed eyelids was like the cloud-covered sky, but the gray was somewhat deeper. Every few minutes, someone would come and paint over the gray with a different-textured gray - one with a touch of gold or green or red. I was impressed with the variety of grays that existed. Human beings were so strange. All you had to do was sit still for ten minutes, and you could see this amazing variety of grays.”

ArtPhilosophy
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“No se debe oponer resistencia a la corriente: hay que ir hacia arriba cuando hay que ir hacia arriba, y hacia abajo cuando hay que ir hacia abajo. Cuando debas ir hacia arriba, busca la torre más alta y sube hasta la cúspide. Cuando debas ir hacia abajo, busca el pozo más profundo y desciende hasta el fondo. Cuando no haya corriente, quédate inmóvil. Si te opones a la corriente todo se seca, el mundo se ve envuelto por las tinieblas. "Yo soy yo, él es yo, atardecer de otoño" Cuando renuncias a mi, yo existo.”

Inspirational Quotes
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“Can I be honest with you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? I mean, really, really, really honest? Sometimes I get sooo scared! I'll wake up in the middle of the night all alone, hundreds of miles away from anybody, and it's pitch dark, and I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen to me in the future, and I get so scared I want to scream. Does that happen to you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? When it happens, I try to remind myself that I am connected to others - other things and other people.”

PeopleFearConnection
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“Lately, it's really been bothering me that, I don't know, the way people work like this every day from morning to night is kind of weird. Hasn't it ever struck you as strange? I mean, all I do here is do the work that my bosses tell me to do the way they tell me to do it. I don't have to think at all. It's like I just put my brain in a locker before I start work and pick it up on the way home. I spend seven hours a day at a workbench, planting hairs into wig bases, then I eat dinner in the cafeteria, take a bath, and of course I have to sleep, like everybody else, so out of a twenty-four-hour day, the amount of free time I have is nothing. And because I'm so tired from work, the "free time" I have I mostly spend lying around in a fog. I don't have any time to sit and think about anything. Of course, I don't have to work at weekends, but then I have to catch up on the laundry and cleaning, and sometimes I go into town, and before I know it the weekend is over”

LifeWorkEconomy
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“Anyway, it seems to me that the way most people go on living (I suppose there are a few exceptions), they think that the world of life (or whatever) is this place where everything is (or is supposed to be) basically logical and consistent.... It's like when you put instant rice pudding mix in a bowl in the microwave and push the button, and you take the cover off when it rings, and there you've got rice pudding. I mean, what happens in between the time when you push the switch and when the microwave rings? You can't tell what's going on under the cover. Maybe the instant rice pudding first turns into macaroni gratin in the darkness when nobody's looking and only then turns back into rice pudding. We think it's natural to get rice pudding after we put rice pudding mix in the microwave and the bell rings, but to me that's just a presumption. I would be kind of relieved if, every once in a while, after you put rice pudding mix in the microwave and it rang and you opened the top, you got macaroni gratin.”

LifeChanceFate
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“Kumiko and I felt something for each other from the start. It was not one of those strong, impulsive feelings that can hit two people like an electric shock when they first meet, but something quieter and gentler, like two tiny lights travelling in tandem through a vast darkness and drawing imperceptibly closer to each other as they go. As our meetings grew more frequent, I felt not so much that I had met someone new as that I had chanced upon a dear old friend.”

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“We were happy with our married life and had no problems to speak of. And yet there were times when I couldn't help sensing an area inside Kumiko to which I had no access. In the middle of the most ordinary-of the most excited - conversation, and without the slightest warning, she might sink into silence. It would happen all of a sudden, for no reason at all (or at least no reason I could discern). It was like walking along the road and all of a sudden falling into a pit. Her silences never lasted very long, but afterwards, until a fair amount of time had gone by, it was as if she were not really there.”

Relationship
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“As you are all aware, in the course of life we experience many kinds of pain. Pains of the body and pains of the heart. I know I have experienced pain in many different forms, and I'm sure you have too. In most cases, though, I'm sure you've found it very difficult to convey the truth of that pain to another person: to explain it in words. People say that only they themselves can understand the pain they are feeling. But is it true? I for one do not believe that it is. If, before our eyes, we see someone who is truly suffering, we do sometimes feel his suffering and pain as our own. This is the power of empathy. Am I making myself clear?'' He broke off and looked around the room once again. ''The reason that people sing songs for other people is because they want to have the power to arouse empathy, to break free of the narrow shell of the self and share their pain and joy with others. This is not an easy thing to do, of course. And so tonight, as kind of experiment, I want you to experience a simpler, more physical kind of empathy. Lights please.'' Everyone in the place was hushed now, all eyes fixed on stage. Amid the silence, the man stared off into space, as if to insert a pause or to reach a state of mental concentration. Then, without a word, he held his hand over the lighted candle. Little by little, he brought the palm closer and closer to the flame. Someone in the audience made a sound like a sigh or a moan. You could see the tip of the flame burning the man's palm. You could almost hear the sizzle of the flesh. A woman let out a hard little scream. Everyone else just watched in frozen horror. The man endured the pain, his face distorted in agony. What the hell was this? Why did he have to do such a stupid, senseless thing? I felt my mouth going dry. After five or six seconds of this, he slowly removed his hand from the flame and set the dish with the candle in it on the floor. Then he clasped his hands together, the right and left palms pressed against each other. ''As you have seen tonight, ladies and gentleman, pain can actually burn a person's flesh,'' said the man. His voice sounded exactly as it had earlier: quiet, steady, cool. No trace of suffering remained on his face. Indeed, it had been replaced by a faint smile. ''And the pain that must have been there, you have been able to feel as if it were your own. That is the power of empathy.”

LifePainSufferingEmpathy
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“As you are all aware, in the course of life we experience many kinds of pain. Pains of the body and pains of the heart. I know I have experienced pain in many different forms, and I'm sure you have too. In most cases, though, I'm sure you've found it very difficult to convey the truth of that pain to another person: to explain it in words. People say that only they themselves can understand the pain they are feeling. But is it true? I for one do not believe that it is. If, before our eyes, we see someone who is truly suffering, we do sometimes feel his suffering and pain as our own. This is the power of empathy. Am I making myself clear?'' He broke off and looked around the room once again. ''The reason that people sing songs for other people is because they want to have the power to arouse empathy, to break free of the narrow shell of the self and share their pain and joy with others. This is not an easy thing to do, of course. And so tonight, as a kind of experiment, I want you to experience a simpler, more physical kind of empathy. Lights please.'' Everyone in the place was hushed now, all eyes fixed on stage. Amid the silence, the man stared off into space, as if to insert a pause or to reach a state of mental concentration. Then, without a word, he held his hand over the lighted candle. Little by little, he brought the palm closer and closer to the flame. Someone in the audience made a sound like a sigh or a moan. You could see the tip of the flame burning the man's palm. You could almost hear the sizzle of the flesh. A woman let out a hard little scream. Everyone else just watched in frozen horror. The man endured the pain, his face distorted in agony. What the hell was this? Why did he have to do such a stupid, senseless thing? I felt my mouth going dry. After five or six seconds of this, he slowly removed his hand from the flame and set the dish with the candle in it on the floor. Then he clasped his hands together, the right and left palms pressed against each other. ''As you have seen tonight, ladies and gentleman, pain can actually burn a person's flesh,'' said the man. His voice sounded exactly as it had earlier: quiet, steady, cool. No trace of suffering remained on his face. Indeed, it had been replaced by a faint smile. ''And the pain that must have been there, you have been able to feel as if it were your own. That is the power of empathy.”

LifePainSufferingEmpathy
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“Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another? We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?”

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“Έβλεπα κι άκουγα τα δάκρυά μου να χύνονται μέσα στη λευκή λίμνη του φεγγαρόφωτου, που τα ρουφούσε και τ'αφομοίωνε σαν να ήταν πάντα μέρος του φωτός. Καθώς έπεφταν τα δάκρυα, αντανακλούσαν το φως του φεγγαριού κι άσταρφταν σαν όμορφοι κρύσταλλοι. Μετά παρατήρησα ότι κι η σκιά μου έκλαιγε, χύνοντας καθαρά, ολοστρόγγυλα δάκρυα σκιάς. Έχεις δει ποτέ τη σκιά των δακρύων, κύριε Κουρδιστό Πουλί; Δεν μοιάζει καθόλου με τις συνηθισμένες σκιές. Καθόλου μα καθόλου. Έρχετ' εδώ από κάποιον άλλο, μακρινό κόσμο, ειδικά για τις καρδιές μας. Ή μπορεί και όχι. Εκείνη τη στιγμή μου πέρασε η ιδέα ότι τα δάκρυα που έχυνε η σκιά μου μπορεί να ήταν τα πραγματικά κι ότι αυτά που έχυνα εγώ ήταν οι πραγματιές σκιές. Δεν το καταλαβαίνεις, είμαι σίγουρη, κύριε Κουρδιστό Πουλί. Όταν ένα γυμνό δεκαεφτάχρονο κορίτσι δακρύζει στο φεγγαρόφωτο, όλα είναι πιθανά. Αυτή είναι η αλήθεια.”

TearsMoonlightMay Kasahara
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“The doctor loved his wife and child. They were the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him in his life--especially his daughter for whom his love bordered on obsession. For them, he would have gladly given up his life. Indeed, he had often imagined doing so, and the deaths he had endured for them in his mind seemed the sweetest deaths imaginable. At the same time, however, he would often come home from work and, seeing his wife and daughter there, think to himself, These people are, finally, separate human beings, with whom I have no connection. They were something other, something of which he had no true knowledge, something that existed in a place far away from the doctor himself. And whenever he felt this way, the thought would cross his mind that he himself had chosen neither of these people on his own--which did not prevent him from loving them unconditionally, without the slightest reservation. This was, for the doctor, a great paradox, an insoluble contradiction, a gigantic trap that had been set for him in his life.”

LoveChoicesFree WillStrangeness
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“Here's what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," said May Kasahara. "Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I'd really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can't seem to do it. They just don't get it. Of course, the problem could be that I'm not explaining it very well, but I think it's because they're not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they're not, really. So I get worked up sometimes, and I do some crazy things.”

Life
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“Sometimes, when one is moving silently through such an utterly desolate landscape, an overwhelming hallucination can make one feel that oneself, as an individual human being, is slowly being unraveled. The surrounding space is so vast that it becomes increasingly difficult to keep a balanced grip on one's own being. The mind swells out to fill the entire landscape, becoming so diffuse in the process that one loses the ability to keep it fastened to the physical self. The sun would rise from the eastern horizon, and cut it's way across the empty sky, and sink below the western horizon. This was the only perceptible change in our surroundings. And in the movement of the sun, I felt something I hardly know how to name: some huge, cosmic love.”

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“Светлината блясва в човешкия живот само за най-кратък миг, вероятно за броени секунди. Ако тази светлина помръкне, без да си успял да доловиш откровението, което тя съдържа, втори шанс няма. Вероятно ще ти се наложи да изживееш остатъка от живота си в безнадеждните дълбини на самотата и съжалението. В този сумрачен свят вече не се стремиш към нищо и не очакваш нищо. Носиш в себе си само изсъхналия труп на онова, което е трябвало да бъде.”

Japanese Literature
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“Наблизо имаше няколко дървета, от които се разнасяше механичният писък на птица, която сякаш навиваше пружина. Наричахме птицата с пружината. Измисли го Кумико. Не знаехме каква птица е и как изглежда, това обаче изобщо не я вълнуваше. Всеки ден тя долиташе в дърветата в квартала и започваше да навива пружината в притихналия ни малък свят.”

Japanese Literature
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“How can I put this? There's a king of gap between what I think is real and what's really real. I get this feeling like some kind of little something-or-other is there, somewhere inside me... like a burglar is in the house, hiding in a wardrobe... and it comes out every once in a while and messes up whatever order or logic I've established for myself. The way a magnet can make a machine go crazy.”

DepressionAnxietyDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationBorderline Personality DisorderBpd
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“I mean, all I do here is do the work that my bosses tell me to do the way they tell me to do it. I don't have to think at all. It's like I just put my brain in a locker before I start work and pick it up on the way home. I spend seven hours a day at a workbench, planting hairs into wig bases, then I eat dinner in the cafeteria, take a bath, and of course I have to sleep, like everybody else, so out of a twenty-four-hour day, the amount of free time I have is like nothing. And because I'm so tired from work, the 'free time' I have I mostly spend lying around in a fog. I don't have any time to sit and think about anything. Of course, I don't have to work on the weekends, but then I have to do the laundry and cleaning I've let go, and sometimes I go into town, and before I know it the weekend is over. I once made up my mind to keep a diary, but I had nothing to write, so I quit after a week. I mean, I just do the same thing over and over again, day in, day out.”

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“Then he continued: 'From the first day I met you, I knew better than to hope you might amount to anything. I saw no sign of promise, nothing in you that might suggest you might accomplish something worthwhile or even turn yourself into a respectable human being: nothing to shine or to shed light on anything ... There is nothing inside that head of yours but garbage and rocks.'" #slacker #backtothefuture #japaneseLITERATURE Then he continued: 'From the first day I met you, I knew better than to hope you might amount to anything. I saw no sign of promise, nothing in you that might suggest you might accomplish something worthwhile or even turn yourself into a respectable human being: nothing to shine or to shed light on anything ... There is nothing inside that head of yours but garbage and rocks.”

Japanese LiteratureSlackerBack To The Future
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“Then he continued: 'From the first day I met you, I knew better than to hope you might amount to anything. I saw no sign of promise, nothing in you that might suggest you might accomplish something worthwhile or even turn yourself into a respectable human being: nothing to shine or to shed light on anything ... There is nothing inside that head of yours but garbage and rocks.”

Japanese LiteratureSlackerBack To The Future
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“I wore my suit and the polka-dot tie. As soon as I spotted Malta Kano, I tried to walk in her direction, but the crowd kept getting in my way. By the time I reached the bar, she was gone. The tropical drink stood there on the bar, in front of her now empty stool. I took the next seat at the bar and ordered a scotch on the rocks. The bartender asked me what kind of scotch I'd like, and I answered Cutty Sark. I really didn't care which brand of scotch he served me, but Cutty Sark was the first thing that came to mind.”

Mysterious WomanCutty Sark
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“Do you know the story of the monkeys of the shitty island?" I asked Nobory Wataya. He shook his head, with no sign of interest. "Never heard of it". "Somewhere, far, far away, there's a shitty island. An island without a name. An island not worth giving a name. A shitty island with shitty shape. On this shitty island grow palm trees that also have shitty shapes. And the palm trees produce coconuts that give off a shitty smell. Shitty monkeys live in the trees, and they love to eat these shitty-smelling coconuts,after which they shit the world's foulest shit. The shit falls on the ground and builds up shitty mounds, making the shitty palm trees that grow on them even shittier. It's an endless cycle." I drank the rest of my coffee. "As I sat here looking at you," I continued, " I suddenly remembered the story of this shitty island. What I'm trying to say is this. A certain kind of shittiness, a certain kind of stagnation, a certain kind of darkness, goes on propagating itself by its own power in its own self-contained cycle. And once it passed a certain point, no one can stop it -even if the person himself want to stop it.”

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“Dawn in Mongolia was an amazing thing. In one instant, the horizon became a faint line suspended in the darkness, and then the line was drawn upward, higher and higher. It was as if a giant hand had stretched down from the sky and slowly lifted the curtain of night from the face of the earth. It was a magnificent sight, far greater in scale...than anything that I, with my limited human faculties, could fully comprehend.”

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