First Person Singular Quotes

“A circle that has many centers but no circumference”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“And now here I was, a first person singular. If I'd chosen a different direction, most likely I wouldn't be here. But still - who is that in the mirror?”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“Loving someone is like having a mental illness that's not covered by health insurance”
― Haruki Murakami

“A minute is a minute, an hour is an hour. We need to cherish it. We need to deftly reconcile ourselves with time, and leave behind as many precious memories as we can - that's what's the most valuable.”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“The individual citizen had no chance to voice his protest or his opinion, not even his fear. He could only leave the country - and so people did. Those who used 'I' instead of 'we' in their language had to escape. It was this fatal difference in grammar that divided them from the rest of their compatriots. As a consequence of this 'us', no civic society developed. The little there was, in the form of small, isolated, and marginalised groups, was soon swallowed up by the national homogenisation that did not permit any differences, any individualism. As under communism, individualism was punished - individuals speaking out against the war, or against nationalism, were singled out as 'traitors'.
How does a person who is a product of a totalitarian society learn responsibility, individuality, initiative? by saying 'no'. But this begins with saying 'I', thinking 'I' and doing 'I' - in public as well as in private. Individuality, the first-person singular, always existed under communism, it was just exiled from public and political life and exercised in private. Thus the terrible hypocrisy with which we learned to live in order to survive is having its backlash now: it is very difficult to connect the private and public 'I'; to start believing that an individual opinion, initiative, or vote could make a difference. There is still too big a danger that the citizen will withdraw into an anonymous, safe 'us'.”
― Slavenka Drakulić, Café Europa: Life After Communism

“There’s nothing worth getting in this world that you can get easily.”
― Haruki Murakami