"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking."
"It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story."
"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."
"But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives."
"Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that."
"Listen up -- there's no war that will end all wars."
"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."
"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."
"Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it."
"I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do."
"There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair."
"Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time."
"The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time."
"What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love."
"Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting."
"Only the Dead stay seventeen forever."
"Chance encounters are what keep us going."
"The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory."
"No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That's all."
"What we seek is some kind of compensation for what we put up with."
"Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting."
"Hey, Mr. Nakata. Gramps. Fire! Flood! Earthquake! Revolution! Godzilla's on the loose! Get up!"
"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."
"Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don't know a soul?"
"A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect."
"Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn't control you--you should control them. "
"Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it's time to drink."
"The light of morning decomposes everything."
"In terms of evolutionary history, it was only yesterday that men learned to walk around on two legs and get in trouble thinking complicated thoughts. So don't worry, you'll burn out.
"But didn't you say you were satisfied with your life?"
"Word games," I dismissed. "Every army needs a flag."
"I realize now that the reality of things is not something you convey to people but something you make."
"Even castles in the sky can do with a fresh coat of paint."
"Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in the world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?"
"Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit"
"You don't get it, do you?" I said. "It's not a question of 'what then.' Some people get a kick out of reading railroad timetables. Some people make huge model boats out of matchsticks. So what's wrong if there happens to be one person in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?"
"What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get in the habit of thinking, this is the world, but that's not true at all. The real world is a much darker and deeper place than this, and much of it is occupied by jellyfish and things."
"The most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned at school."
"There are symbolic dreams-- dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities -- realities that symbolize a dream. Symbols are what you might call the honorary town councilors of the worm universe. In the worm universe, there is nothing unusual about a dairy cow seeking a pair of pliers. A cow is bound to get her pliers sometime. It has nothing to do with me."
"I get irritated, I get upset. Especially when I'm in a hurry. But I see it all as part of our training. To get irritated is to lose our way in life."
"I get irritated, I get upset. Especially when I'm in a hurry. But I see it all as part of our training. To get irritated is to lose our way in life."