Hard is it to die, because our delicate flesh doth shrink back from the worm it will not feel, and from that unknown which the winding-sheet doth curtain from our view. But harder still, to my fancy, would it be to live on, green in the leaf and fair, but dead and rotten at the core, and feel that other secret worm of recollection gnawing ever at the heart.
Submitted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 14:29 — GabrielleWho Said It?:H. Rider HaggardSource:She
Link to full quote: Quote #1349 from She by H. Rider Haggard.
And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; there in they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber stamps.
Submitted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 14:28 — GabrielleWho Said It?:H.L. Mencken
Link to full quote: Quote #465 by H.L. Mencken.
All the same, my depression and self-hatred, my desire to mutilate myself with broken bottles, my numbness and crying fits, my inability to get out of bed for days and days, the feeling of the world moving in to crush me, went on and on. But I knew I wouldn’t go mad, even if that release, that letting-go, was a freedom I desired. I was waiting for myself to heal.
Submitted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 14:28 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Hanif KureishiSource:The Buddha of Suburbia
Link to full quote: Quote #14 from The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi.
Hell came right along with God, hand in hand. The stink of sulfur swirled in the air of the church, fire burned in the aisles, and brimstone rained out of the rafters. From the evangelist's oven mouth spewed images of a place with pitchforks, and devils, and lakes of fire that burned forever. God had fixed a place like that because he loved us so much.
Submitted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 14:31 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Harry Crews
Link to full quote: Quote #2161 from A Childhood: The Biography of A Place by Harry Crews.
'Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time. It's only a natural feeling.'
Submitted on Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 19:46 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki MurakamiSource:Kafka on the Shore
Link to full quote: Quote #2273 from Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.
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.
Submitted on Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 19:43 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki MurakamiSource:Dance Dance Dance
Link to full quote: Quote #2272 from Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami.
When did my youth slip away from me? I suddenly thought. It was over, wasn't it? Seemed just like yesterday I was still only half grown up. Huey Lewis and the News had a couple of hit songs then. Not so many years ago. And now here I was, inside a closed circuit, spinning my wheels. Knowing I wasn't getting anywhere, but spinning just the same. I had to. Had to keep that up or I wouldn't be able to survive.
Submitted on Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 18:52 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki MurakamiSource:Sputnik Sweetheart
Link to full quote: Quote #2268 from Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami.
The me sitting here and the image of me I have are out of sync.
Submitted on Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 18:50 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki MurakamiSource:Sputnik Sweetheart
Link to full quote: Quote #2267 from Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami.
Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.
Submitted on Friday, April 24, 2009 - 09:01 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki MurakamiSource:Kafka on the Shore
Link to full quote: Quote #2240 from Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.
She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, 'I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.'
Submitted on Friday, April 24, 2009 - 08:57 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki MurakamiSource:Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Link to full quote: Quote #2239 from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami.
It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.
Submitted on Friday, April 24, 2009 - 08:55 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki MurakamiSource:Kafka on the Shore
Link to full quote: Quote #2238 from Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.
I'm a far more flawed human being than you realize. My sickness is a lot worse than you think: it has deeper roots. And that's why I want you to go on ahead of me if you can. Don't wait for me. Sleep with other girls if you want to. Don't let thoughts of me hold you back. Just do what you want to do. Otherwise, I might end up taking you with me, and that is the one thing I don't want to do. I don't want to interfere with your life. I don't want to interfere with anybody's life. Like I said before, I want you to come to see me every once in a while, and always remember me. That's all I want.
Submitted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 14:30 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki MurakamiSource:Norwegian Wood
Link to full quote: Quote #2040 from Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.
Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.
It's a cliché translated into words, but at the time I felt it not as words but as that knot of air inside me. Death exists - in a paperweight, in four red and white balls on a pool table - and we go on living and breathing it into our lungs like fine dust.
Until that time, I had understood death as something entirely separate from and independent of life. The hand of death is bound to take us, I had felt, but until the day it reaches out for us, it leaves us alone. This had seemed to me the simple, logical truth. Life is here, death is over there. I am here, not over there.
Submitted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 14:30 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki MurakamiSource:Norwegian Wood
Link to full quote: Quote #1877 from Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.
Silence floated up from the receiver like smoke from the mouth of a gun.
Submitted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 14:30 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki Murakami
Link to full quote: Quote #1859 from Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.
But there's one thing I want you to remember, Kafka. Those are exactly the kind of people who murdered Miss Saeki's childhood sweetheart. 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 fear and loathe. Of course it's important to know what's right and wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive. They're a lost cause...I wish I could just laugh off people like that, but I can't.
Submitted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 14:30 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Haruki MurakamiSource:Kafka on the Shore
Link to full quote: Quote #1848 from Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.
