Norwegian Wood

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

What happens when people open their hearts?" "They get better.

Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment.

Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.

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.

I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?

I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it -- to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once.

Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt.

Letters are just pieces of paper," I said. "Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish.

I have a million things to talk to you about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.

What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously.

I really like you, Midori. A lot.” “How much is a lot?” “Like a spring bear,” I said. “A spring bear?” Midori looked up again. “What’s that all about? A spring bear.” “You’re walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, “Hi, there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?’ So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other’s arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?” “Yeah. Really nice.” “That’s how much I like you.

If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark

What makes us the most normal," said Reiko, "is knowing that we're not normal.

I don't care what you do to me, but I don't want you to hurt me. I've had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy.

I didn't have much to say to anybody but kept to myself and my books. With my eyes closed, I would touch a familiar book and draw it's fragrance deep inside me. This was enough to make me happy.

Not that we were incompatible: we just had nothing to talk about.

So what’s wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?

Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that eighteen years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn't give a damn about the scenery that day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us together, and then about myself again. It was the age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications. The scenery was the last thing on my mind.

So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Watanabe: Wow, and did your search pay off? M: That's the hard part. I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough.

She's letting out her feelings. The scary thing is not being able to do that. When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you're in big trouble.

Something inside me had dropped away, and nothing came in to fill the cavern.

I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty five days a year, I was still in elementary school at the time - fifth or sixth grade - but I made up my mind once and for all.” “Wow,” I said. “Did the search pay off?” “That’s the hard part,” said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. “I guess I’ve been waiting so long I’m looking for perfection. That makes it tough.” “Waiting for the perfect love?” “No, even I know better than that. I’m looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.” “I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement. “It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are time in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.” “Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?” “Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. “Now I see, Midori. What a fool I have been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate Mousse? Cheesecake?” “So then what?” “So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.” “Sounds crazy to me.” “Well, to me, that’s what love is…

It's because of you when I'm in bed in the morning that I can wind my spring and tell myself I have to live another good day.

Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.

Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It's like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. So stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they're supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course.