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I just finished this book a few days ago and these are the quotes I loved from it. Anyways I hope someone enjoys them, the book was amazing, if you like the quotes I suggest you get the book.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Full Moon and Eclipse of the Sun On Horses Dying in the Stables
Vaguely dissatisfied, I turned to the kitchen table, drank my coffee, and ate my sandwich. Until the moment the telephone rang, I had been thinking of something, but now I couldn’t remember what it was. Knife in hand poised to cut the sandwich in half, I had definitely been thinking of something. Something important. Something I had been trying unsuccessfully to recall for the longest time. It had come to me at the very moment when I was about to cut the sandwich in two, but now it was gone. Chewing on my sandwich, I tried hard to bring it back. But it wouldn’t come. It had returned to that dark region in my mind where it had been living until that moment.
I placed my right hand on the table, palm up, assuming she was planning to read my palm. Instead, she stretched her hand out and put her palm against me. Then she closed her eyes, remaining utterly still, as if silently rebuking a faithless lover.
When challenged, he would hold back, let his opponent have his say, and then demolish the person’s argument with a single phrase. He had mastered the art of delivering the fatal blow with a purr and a smile.
It was as though we were speaking to each other in different languages. If the Dalai Lama were on his deathbed and the jazz musician Eric Dolphy were to try to explain to him the importance of choosing one’s engine oil in accordance with changes in the sound of the bass clarinet, that exchange might have been a touch more worthwhile and effective than my conversations with Noboru Wataya.
“My name is Malta Kano. You were kind enough to see me the other day. Would you happen to have any plans for this afternoon?” None I said. I had no more plans than a migrating bird has collateral assets.
But the narrower it became, and the more it betook of stillness, the more this world that enveloped me seemed to overflow with things and people that could only be called strange. They had been there all the while, it seemed, waiting in the shadows for me to stop moving. And every time the wind-up bird came to my yard to wind it’s spring, the world descended more deeply into chaos.
As I mulled these things over, I began to feel incredibly sleepy. This was not an ordinary kind of sleepiness. It was an intense, even violent, sleepiness. Sleep was stripping me of consciousness the way the clothes might be stripped from the body of an unresisting person. I went to the bedroom without thinking, took everything off but my underwear, and got in bed. I tried to look at the clock on the night table, but I couldn’t even turn my head sideways. I closed my eyes and fell instantly into a deep, bottomless sleep.
The liquid seemed vaguely uncomfortable in its tall glass, as if it had nothing better to do than produce its little bubbles.
It felt extremely strange not to be able to see my own body with my own eyes, though I knew it must be there. Staying very still in the darkness, I became less and less convinced of the fact that I actually existed. To cope with that, I would clear my throat now and then, or run my hand over my face. That way, my ears could check on the existence of my voice, my hand could check on the existence of my face, and my face could check on the existence of my hand.
"I mean...this is what I think, but... people have to think seriously about what it means for them to be alive here and now because they know they're going to die sometime. Right? Who would think about what it means to be alive if they were just going to go on living forever? Why would they have to bother? Or even if they should bother, they'd probably just figure, 'Oh I've got plenty of time for that. I'll think about it later.' But we can't wait till later. We've got to think about it right this second. I might get run over by a truck tomorrow afternoon. And you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird: you might starve to death. One morning three days from now, you could be dead in the bottom of a well. See? Nobody knows what's going to happen. So we need death to make us evolve. That's what I think. Death is this huge, bright thing, and the bigger and brighter it is, the more we have to drive ourselves crazy thinking about it.”
I tried to make an appropriate response, but the little noise that came out of my throat sounded less like a response than like the gasp of an aquatic animal that had breathed the wrong way.
“But do be careful, Mr. Okada. To know one’s own state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one’s own face with one’s own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all.”
Her body reminded me of those drawings that use the absolute minimum of line yet still give an incredible sense of reality.
But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drank, the very air I breathed, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o’clock in the morning.
The young man showed me to the sofa, then went around to the other side of the desk and sat down facing me. Holding his palms out toward me, he signaled for me to wait awhile. Instead of saying “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he produced a slight smile, and instead of saying “It will not take long,” he held up one finger. He seemed to be able to express himself without words. I nodded once to signal that I understood. For one to have spoken in his presence would have seemed inappropriate and vulgar.
Yet something was different. He felt as if his self had been put into a new container. He knew that he was still not fully accustomed to this new body of his. He knew that he was still not fully accustomed to this new body of his. There was something about this one, he felt, that just didn’t match his original self. A sudden feeling of helplessness overtook him, and he tried to call for his mother, but the word would not emerge from his throat. His vocal cords were unable to stir in the air, as if the very word “mother” had disappeared from the world. Before long, the boy realized that the word was not what had disappeared.
To tell you the truth, sleepless nights are as unusual for me as sumo wrestlers who look good in berets.
It's like when you put instant rice pudding mix in a bowl in the microwave and push the button, and you take the cover off when it rings, and there you've got rice pudding. I mean, what happens in between the time when you push the switch and when the microwave rings? You can't tell what's going on under the cover. Maybe the instant rice pudding first turns into macaroni gratin in the darkness when nobody's looking and only then turns back into rice pudding. We think it's only natural to get rice pudding after we put rice pudding mix in the microwave and the bell rings, but to me that's just a presumption. I would be kind of relieved if, every once in a while, after you put rice pudding mix in the microwave and it rang and you opened the top, you got macaroni gratin. I suppose I'd be shocked, of course, but I don't know, I think I'd be kind of relieved too. Or at least I think I wouldn't be so upset, because that would feel, in some ways, a whole lot more real.
The water was up to my throat. Now it was wrapped around my neck like a noose. In anticipation, I was beginning to find it difficult to breathe. My heart, now underwater, was working hard to tick off the time it had remaining. At this rate, I would have another five minutes or so before the water covered my mouth and nose and started filling my lungs. There was no way I could win. I had brought this well back to life, and I would die in its rebirth. It was not a bad way to die, I told myself. The world is full of much worse ways to die.
When I've got my collar up and my scarf wrapped round and round under my chin, and my breath makes white puffs in the air, and I've got a chunk of bread in my pocket, and I'm walking down the path in the woods, thinking about the duck people, I get this really warm, happy feeling, and it hits me that I haven't felt happy like this for a long, long time.
I often used to dream of you - clear vivid dreams with clear-cut stories. In these dreams, you were always searching desperately for me. We were in a kind of labyrinth, and you would come almost up to where I was standing. “Take one more step! I’m Right here!” I wanted to shout, and if only you would find me and take me into your arms, the nightmare would end and everything would go back to the way it was. But I was never able to produce that shout. And you would miss me in the darkness and go straight ahead past me and disappear. It was always like that. But still, those dreams helped and encouraged me. At least I still had the power to dream. I was able to sense that you were doing everything in your power to draw nearer to me. Maybe someday you would find me, and hold me, and sweep away the filth that was clinging to me, and take me away from that place forever. Maybe you would smash the curse and set the seal so that the real me would never have to leave again. That was how I was able to keep a tiny flame of hope alive in that cold, dark place with no exit - how I was able to preserve the slightest remnant of my own voice.