Norwegian wood, by Haruki Murakami

In any case, though, I believe that I have no been fair to you and that, as a result, I must have led you around in circles and hurt you deeply. In doing so, however, I have led myself around in circles and hurt myself just as deeply. I say this not as an excuse or means of self-justification but because it's true. If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound, but mine as well. So please try not to hate me. I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you realize. Which is precisely why I do not want you to hate me. Because if you were to do that I would really go to pieces. I can't do what you can do: I can't slip inside my shell and wait for things to pass. I don't know for a fact that you are really like that, but sometimes you give me that impression. I often envy that in you, which may be why I led you around in circles so much.

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Tell me how you could say such a thing, she said, staring down at the ground beneath her feet. You're not telling me anything I don't know already. 'Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up.' What's the point of saying that to me? If I relaxed my body now, I'd fall apart. I've always lived like this, and it's the only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd never find my way back. I'd go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. Why can't you see that? How can you talk about watching over me if you can't see that?

Sputnik sweetheart

Sputnik sweetheart

Haruki Murakami, After Dark

“You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper.” 

Haruki Murakami, After Dark

“People with places to go and people with no place to go; people with a purpose and people with no purpose; people trying to hold time back and people trying to urge it forward” 

Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Sometimes I feel so- I don’t know - lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when everything you’re used to has been ripped away. Like there’s no more gravity, and I’m left to drift in outer space with no idea where I’m going’
Like a little lost Sputnik?’
I guess so.” 

"Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories" by Haruki Murakami

"These days I just can’t seem to say what I mean. I just can’t.
Every time I try to say something, it misses the point.
Either that or I end up saying the opposite of what I mean.
The more I try to get it right the more mixed up it gets.

Sometimes I can’t even remember what I was trying to say in the first place.
It’s like my body’s split in two and one of me is chasing the other me around a big pillar. We’re running circles around it.
The other me has the right words, but I can never catch her."