Men Without Women Quotes
"Most female drivers fell into one of two categories: either they were a little too aggressive or a little too timid."
"Generally speaking, women were more cautious than men behind the wheel."
"Their driving style tended to irritate others on the road."
"Their only problem occurred when he got in a car and found a woman sitting beside him with her hands on the steering wheel."
"His throat would turn dry, or he would start saying foolish, totally unnecessary things just to bury the silence."
"Nor was he apt to perceive any difference in ability between the sexes."
"Women paid closer attention to details, and they listened well."
"She’s not what you’d call cute, either. Almost never smiles, and she’s a bit homely, to be honest."
"In the winter, he wore a thick coat and wrapped a scarf around his neck, while in the summer he donned dark sunglasses and a cap."
"Kafuku had no idea where this difference between men and women drivers came from."
"Yet their driving didn’t create the same charged atmosphere."
"They could converse and act normally even while focused on the road."
"He had fallen deeply in love with her when they first met, and this feeling had remained unchanged until the day she died."
"Only through knowing could a person become strong."
"Smiling calmly when his heart was torn and his insides were bleeding."
"But the place you return to is always slightly different from the place you left. That’s the rule. It can never be exactly the same."
"People only lived to about sixty back then. Uncle Vanya was fortunate he wasn’t born into today’s world."
"It’s just a matter of flesh and blood. No more than a pile of bone and ash in the end, right? There has to be something more important than that."
"But the self that one returned to was never exactly the same as the self that one had left behind."
"Music has that power to revive memories, sometimes so intensely that they hurt."
"But when I look back at myself at age twenty, what I remember most is being alone and lonely."
"Physical relations were, after all, just physical."
"What he sought most was an intimate, intellectual connection with a number of attractive women."
"As long as he maintained this arrangement, none of his partners had the desire to marry him."
"All that matters is that a clear portrait of Dr. Tokai should emerge."
"He takes cares of most household chores himself—cooking, laundry, ironing, cleaning—and the rest are handled by professional housecleaners who come twice a month."
"When I’m driving and the Beatles song 'Yesterday' comes on the radio, I can’t help but hear those crazy lyrics Kitaru crooned in the bath."
"I have no way of knowing what darkness lay in his subconscious, or what sins he may have carried with him."
"It was all I could do to open my eyes in the strong headwind, catch my breath, and forge ahead."
"No operation could ever improve a woman’s intellectual skills."
"Sticky emotional conflicts were definitely not for him."
"Matrimony wasn’t for him, yet it was, in its way, a sacred institution."
"These women had shared a precious portion of their lives with him."
"Having children was a wonderful thing, but he never could buy this sales pitch."
"Having a pleasant conversation over dinner with an intelligent woman, or lingering over small talk while holding one another in bed—these were the moments he treasured."
"A gentleman doesn’t talk much about the taxes he paid, or the women he sleeps with."
"Sometimes I’m surprised by how smart I can be."
"If you were worried about your looks, and had enough money saved up, you could alter your appearance pretty much any way you liked."
"I’m simply a polite, lucky man. That might be the best way to think of it."
"He broke off relations with his girlfriends on a pretty regular basis."
"I’ve been out with lots of women who are much prettier than her, better built, with better taste, and more intelligent. But those comparisons are meaningless."
"The joy of the body shrinking to nothing won out over the pain."
"Things that I used to enjoy I now find boring."
"It’s like I want to toss everything in the apartment out the window."
"But still these days I’ve often wondered, Who in the world am I?"
"Women are all born with a special, independent organ that allows them to lie."
"A function beyond his will. With hindsight it’s easy for someone else to sadly shake his head and smugly criticize another’s actions."
"I’m not stranded on a desert island. No, he thought, I am a desert island."
"She barely spoke during their lovemaking, either, performing each act as if completing an assignment."
"If he could fully grasp that concept, he could deal with whatever lay ahead."
"It’s like catching a glimpse through a tiny hole in a wall—you only get a snapshot of that little bit."
"Lampreys think very lamprey-like thoughts. About lamprey-like topics in a context that’s very lamprey-like."
"Life is strange, isn’t it? You can be totally entranced by the glow of something one minute, be willing to sacrifice everything to make it yours, but then a little time passes, or your perspective changes a bit, and all of a sudden you’re shocked at how faded it appears."
"As he waited for his first customer, Kino enjoyed listening to whatever music he liked and reading books he’d been wanting to read."
"Like dry ground welcoming the rain, he let the solitude, silence, and loneliness soak in."
"The most he could do was create a place where his heart—devoid now of any depth or weight—could be tethered, to keep it from wandering aimlessly."
"It was raining lightly that day, the kind of rain where you aren’t sure if you really need an umbrella."
"I think it’d be good for you to forget about what happened and find someone new."
"Among human emotions, nothing was worse than jealousy and pride."
"The world was a vast ocean with no landmarks, Kino a little boat that had lost its chart and its anchor."
"Trying to think anything through at this point was too great a burden."
"And how did he know that? Perhaps someone had whispered it in his ear while he lay sleeping?"
"Stealing himself, he lowered his legs over the edge of the bed until the soles of his feet touched the floor."
"What mattered was filling that empty cavern inside him."
"By the time you realize that loneliness is a part of you, it's already a deep-seated part of your existence, like a red wine stain on a pastel carpet."
"Once you become Men Without Women, you learn how deep your loneliness can go, how much it can hurt."
"The world changes when you're Men Without Women; sounds are different, and even the way you experience thirst changes."
"Being Men Without Women is like being an astronaut stranded in space, forever floating away from the world you once knew."
"In the vast universe of loneliness, each of us is a solitary planet with our own unique atmosphere of solitude."