A collection of short stories.

• A Folklore for My Generation: A Pre-History of Late-stage Capitalism
• Tony Takitani

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

• The fear is the worst thing. The pain I imagine is worse than the actual pain.
• But everything in the room had dried up, had long ago lost its color and smell. Time alone had stood still.
• "A blind willow looks small on the outside, but it's got incredibly deep roots," she explained. "Actually, after a certain point, it stops growing up and pushes further and further and further down into the ground. Like the darkness nourishes it."

Birthday Girl:

• No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves.

New York Mining Disaster:

• People think of all kinds of things at three in the morning. We all do. That's why we each have to figure out our own way of fighting it off.
• "I don't want to say anything about other people," he said, "but consider the fact that there are ways of dying that don't end in funerals. Types of death you can't smell."

Airplane: Or, How He Talked to Himself as if Reciting Poetry

• Tracks without trains passing over them have a mysterious silence all their own.
• She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, "I sometimes think that people's hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what's at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while."

The Mirror

• the most frightening thing in the world is our own self.

Hunting Knife

• Most things look beautiful when you're way up high.
• It was as if my whole life revolved around trying to judge the right point in a conversation to say goodbye.
• Was it all an illusion? Or was I the illusion? Maybe it didn't matter.

Man-Eating Cats:

• It would have been a mistake to label this "love." It was more like total empathy.

A "Poor Aunt" Story

• The host looked confused. "You say it has no meaning or form," he observed, "but we can clearly see . . . something . . . some real image is there on your back. And it gives rise to some sort of meaning in each of us . . ." / I shrugged. "Of course," I said. "That's what signs do."

The Seventh Man

• His face had the look you see on people when they can't quite find the words they need. In his case, though, the expression seemed to have been there from long before, as though it were a part of him.

The Year of Spaghetti

• Can you imagine how astonished the Italians would be if they kenw that what they were exporting in 1971 was really loneliness?

The Ice Man

• Ice contains no future, just the past, sealed away. As if they're alive, everything in the world is sealed up inside, clear and distinct. Ice can preserve all kinds of things that way -- cleanly, clearly. That's the essence of ice, the role it plays.

Firefly

• "I don't know . . . These days I just can't seem to say what I mean," she said. "I just can't. Every time I try to say something, it misses the point. Either that or I end up saying the opposite of what I mean. The more I try to get it right the more mixed up it gets. Sometimes I can't even remember what I was trying to say in the first place. It's like my body's split in two and one of me is chasing the other me around a big pillar. We're running circles around it. The other me has the right words, but I can never catch her."
• Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.
• Everyone is looking for something from someone.

Chance Traveler

• If you have to choose between something that has form and something that doesn't, go for the one without form.
• "I didn't want to explain things," he said, cutting her off. "I wanted people to understand me, without having to put it into words. You, especially."

Where I'm Likely to Find It

• "I'm not sure if I could tell the difference -- between staring into space and thinking. We're usually thinking all the time, aren't we? Not that we live in order to think, but the opposite isn't true either--that we think in order to live. I believe, contrary to Descartes, that we sometimes think in order not to be. Staring into space might unintentionally actually have the opposite effect. At any rate, it's a difficult question."
• "Sometimes we don't need words," the old man said, as if he hadn't heard me. "Rather, it's words that need us. If we were no longer here, words would lose their whole function. Don't you think so? They would end up as words that are never spoken, and words that aren't spoken are no longer words."

A Shinagawa Monkey

• As she responded to all these questions, Mizuki was struck by what an uninspired life she'd led. Nothing approaching the dramatic had ever touched her. If her life were a movie, it would be one of those low-budget environmental documentaries guaranteed to put you to sleep. Washed-out scenery stretching out endlessly to the horizon. No changes of scene, no close-ups, nothing exciting, just a flatline experience with nothing whatsoever to draw you in. Nothing ominous, nothing suggestive. Occasionally the camera angle would shift ever so slightly as if nudged out of its complacency.