Mila > Mila's Quotes

“I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. I’ve had this tendency ever since I was young, when, given a choice, I much preferred reading books on my own or concentrating on listening to music over being with someone else. I could always think of things to do by myself.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“In certain areas of my life, I actively seek out solitude. Especially for someone in my line of work, solitude is, more or less, an inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person's heart and dissolve it. You could see it, too, as a kind of double-edged sword. It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“I am struck by how, except when you're young, you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don't get that sort of system set by a certain age, you'll lack focus and your life will be out of balance.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“At a certain point in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. This isn’t always the case, but from experience I’d say the gloomy reports far outnumber the others. The messenger touches his hand to his cap and looks apologetic, but that does nothing to improve the contents of the message. It isn’t the messenger’s fault. No good to blame him, no good to grab him by the collar and shake him. The messenger is just conscientiously doing the job his boss assigned him. And this boss? That would be none other than our old friend Reality.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“When I'm running I don't have to talk to anybody and don't have to listen to anybody. This is a part of my day I can't do without.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“No matter how much long-distance running might suit me, of course there are days when I feel kind of lethargic and don’t want to run. Actually, it happens a lot. On days like that, I try to think of all kinds of plausible excuses to slough it off. Once, I interviewed the Olympic running Toshihiko Seko, just after he retired from running and became manager of the S&B company team. I asked him, “Does a runner at your level ever feel like you’d rather not run today, like you don’t want to run and would rather just sleep in?” He stared at me and then, in a voice that made it abundantly clear how stupid he thought the question was, replied, “Of course. All the time!”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“Has the dark shadow really disappeared?
Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear?
Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“Maybe the only thing I can definitely say about is this: That’s life. Maybe the only thing we can do is accept it, without really knowing what’s going on.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“For both of us, it had simply been too enormous an experience. We shared it by not talking about it. Does this make any sense?”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“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.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“I certainly believe we all suffer damage, one way or another. How could we not,except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions? And then there is the question on which so much depends, of how we react to the damage: whether we admit it or repress it,and how this affects our dealings with others.Some admit the damage, and try to mitigate it;some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of.”
― Julian Barnes , The Sense of an Ending

“Дадох си сметка, за пръв път с тази яснота (яснотата на януарския въздух), че онова, което остава не са извънредните моменти, не са събитията, а тъкмо нищонеслучващото се. Време, освободено от претенцията за изключителност. Спомени за следобеди, в които нищо не се е случило. Нищо, освен живота, в цялата му пълнота.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Физика на тъгата

“Във вестниците, които обработвах преди време пишеше, че unfriend е думата на 2009 ...Разприятелявам се ... С времето приятелите изчезват по различен начин. Някои внезапно, все едно никога не ги е имало. Други постепенно, с неудобство, извинително ... Спират да звънят. Първо не разбираш. После започваш да проверяваш дали не ти е паднала батерията на телефона. Остра липса в 5 следобед. В началото трае близо час, после по-малко. Но никога не изчезва.”
― Георги Господинов, Физика на тъгата

“Във всяка секунда на този свят има една дълга върволица от плачещи хора и една по-малка от смеещи се.
Но има и трета върволица, която вече не плаче и вече не се смее.
Най-тъжната от трите. За нея ми се говори.”
― Георги Господинов, Natural Novel

“How uninteresting interesting things can become.”
― Robert Walser, Masquerade and Other Stories

“When we realize that words can destroy something good, wonderful, and dear, and that by keeping silent we can avoid causing the least damage or harm, it’s easy to stay silent.”
― Robert Walser, Masquerade and Other Stories

“If a hand, a situation, a wave were ever to raise me up and carry me to where I could command power and influence, I would destroy the circumstances that had favoured me, and I would hurl myself down into the humble, speechless, insignificant darkness. I can only breathe in the lower regions.”
― Robert Walser, Jakob von Gunten

“Exceptional estimable, good, nice, dear people they all were but they all, unluckily, kept asking me about the new novel, and that was excrutiating.”
― Robert Walser