When I was nineteen, I had little idea how my own mind worked, and of course, I had little idea how other people's minds worked either.
Still, I thought I had a rough idea of ​​what joy and sadness were.
It's just that we haven't yet been able to clearly distinguish the numerous phenomena that exist between joy and sorrow, and their relative positions.
And that fact often made me feel terribly anxious and helpless.

---From "On a Stone Pillow"

Our bodies are moving irreversibly towards destruction with each passing moment.
If you close your eyes for a moment and open them, you will realize that a lot of things have already disappeared.
Swept away by the strong night wind, they—some with names and some without—flew away without leaving a trace.
All that remains are trivial memories.

---From "On a Stone Pillow"

“Sometimes things like that happen in our lives.
An incident that is inexplicable and makes no sense, but leaves the mind terribly disturbed.
At times like that, you have no choice but to close your eyes and let it pass without thinking or worrying about anything.
“Like escaping under a huge wave.”
---From "Cream"

All I can say is that it was music that touched the very core of my soul.
Music that makes you feel like your body structure has changed a little bit before and after listening to it—there definitely is such music in the world.

---From "Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova"

Some people claim that the happiest times in life are when pop songs seep deep, deeply, and naturally into your heart.
That might really be the case.
Or maybe not.
Maybe a pop song is just a pop song after all.
And our lives may ultimately be nothing more than flashy, consumable items.

---From "With the Beatles"

Yes, life is about losing more than winning.
And the true wisdom of life comes not from 'how to win' but rather from 'how to lose well'.

---From "Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection"

They are just a couple of small incidents that happened in my private life.
Looking back now, it was a bit of a detour from the episode.
Even if that hadn't happened, my life wouldn't be much different from what it is now.
But those memories will one day, perhaps after a long and distant passage, find their way to where I am.
And it shakes my heart so strangely.
Like the wind at the end of autumn, which sweeps up the leaves of the forest, lays down the reeds all at once, and knocks loudly on the doors of each house.

---From "Carnival"

“But even if love disappears, even if love is not realized, I can still keep the memory of having loved and cherished someone.
It also provides us with a valuable source of heat.
If there were no such source of heat, the human mind—and the monkey's mind too—would become a frigid wilderness without a single blade of grass.
“On that land, the sun will not shine all day, and neither the grass of peace nor the tree of hope will grow.”
---From "Confessions of the Shinagawa Monkey"

There have been several important turning points in my life so far—like most lives, perhaps.
You could go either way, right or left.
Each time, I chose either right or left.
(……) That’s why I am here now.
Here, like this, I exist as the first-person singular self.
If I had chosen a different direction even once, I probably wouldn't be here now.
But who is the person reflected in this mirror?

---From "First Person Singular"