A Quote by Haruki Murakami
In any case, suffice it to say I enjoyed hearing about faraway places. I had stocked up a whole store of these places, like a bear getting ready for hibernation. I'd close my eyes, and streets would materialize, rows of houses take shape. I could hear people's voices, feel the gentle, steady rhythm of their lives, those people so distant, whom I'd probably never know.
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When you are a screwed up person, you have a responsibility to keep your normal friends from getting walked on. 'Cos, how bad could you screw that up ? And don't say, Well, you could cause someone six months of physical therapy. 'Cos, hey, lots of times, those exercise take places in pools and nylon tents with little plastic balls. Fun places like that. And, she gets to park up really close for a while. Ha ha, oh, I'm the bad guy.
There's a whole beautiful world out there, and it was like riding a magic carpet, getting to know exotic, faraway places.
It would be a wonderful experience to stand there in those enchanted surroundings and hear Shakespeare and Milton and Bunyan read from their noble works. And it might be that they would like to hear me read some of my things. No, it could never be; they would not care for me. They would not know me, they would not understand me, and they would say they had an engagement. But if I could only be there, and walk about and look, and listen, I should be satisfied and not make a noise. My life is fading to its close, and someday I shall know.
I guess what I'm looking for here is empathy. So you [Nicholas Kristof] have traveled all around the world, famously to the worse places of the world. Darfur. Mogadishu, Ouagadougou. Probably those places much more than Modesto or Lewiston.I never read a column by you that suggest the people in those places, who support dictators oftentimes, are racists or bad people. You would never write that about a poor person in the third world but you are implying that about your fellow Americans.
As they were leading me up, I looked up and around the galleries and I could feel the whole Aboriginal race, of those who had gone before, were all up there, and I could visualise, I could hear voices and amongst those voices was the voice of my grandfather saying, 'It's alright now boy, you are finally in the council with the Australian Elders. Everything is now going to be alright.'
And, one thing I definitely enjoyed personally, from a selfish point of view, was exploration and going to places that I had never been to before and learning, you know, meeting the people and getting to know, new sights and sounds, etc.
It is so gratifying to hear from people who look up to you and see you in these places that they never thought they could ever dream to be. It's emotional. You really feel like you're opening up people's minds, who otherwise thought that they couldn't dream big. That's such a huge opportunity. It's such a gift.
Life is too mysterious to try to map it out. I've certainly lived long enough to know it will take you places you never thought it would take you - and some of those places are kind of wonderful.
When I'm in Los Angeles, it's hard to be creative. For me, New Orleans is one of those places that's like a muse. You can hear music on the streets. There's a certain character the city has that inspires you when you're needing to write lyrics and come up with melodies and come up with rhythm and blues. The city has a pulse and it's an inspiration for me.
I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have - I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black places in the hearts of men - and change somethings in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.
You would hear stories of people that lost their houses. I remember people who had their whole lives turned upside down. I think people did learn lessons from the '80s.
People come up to us and ask how we knew so much about their own family... I'm talking about people from faraway places, too. I get people from Turkey and Chile coming up to me and saying I wrote about their family.
He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows; and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk — that anything — could give him so much happiness.
If we can develop and design streets so that they are wonderful, fulfilling places to be - community-building places, attractive for all people - then we will have successfully designed about one-third of the city directly and will have had an immense impact on the rest.
The Internet is allowing for us to really experience people in some of the most distant places in the world - as other people just like us. So get to know people, seek out bloggers from a country you're kind of curious about. It's about building empathy and breaking through to the point of recognizing people as people.
libraries are fascinating places: sometimes you feel you are under the canopy of a railway station, and when you read books about exotic places there's a feeling of travelling to distant lands
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