"You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards."

"Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price."

"We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself."

"Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms."

"To aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service."

"It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his readers is sure to skip them."

"All of the top achievers I know are life-long learners... Looking for new skills, insights, and ideas. If they're not learning, they're not growing... not moving toward excellence."

"Next to excellence, comes the appreciation of it."

"Next to excellence is the appreciation of it."

"Next to excellence is the appreciation of it"

"Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued."

"Excellence always sells"

"Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better."

"I no more thought of style or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and cries for help to save her children from a burning house, thinks of the teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist."

"Men of perverse opinion do not know the excellence of what is in their hands, till someone dash it from them."

“No other writer tells a story so well and with so much profound philosophy as Haruki Murakami does!”

“She was a quiet little creature living deep in the woods, with pale wings like the shadow of a spirit.”

“Intelligent teenage girls were often instinctively theatrical, purposely eccentric, mouthing highly suggestive words to confuse people.”

“The scene seemed somehow divorced from reality, although reality, he knew, could at times be terribly unreal.”

“Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what’s going on…. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes.”

“I understood for the first time that I didn't understand what I thought I understood”

“Everything is there but there are no parts. Since there are no parts there's no need to replace one thing with another. No need to remove anything or add anything. You don't have to think about difficult things just let yourself soak it all in. For Nakata nothing could be better.”

“Once you’re lost, you panic. You’re in total despair, not knowing what to do. I hate it when that happens. Sex can be a real pain that way, ‘cause when you get in the mood all you can think about is what’s right under your nose - that’s sex, all right.”

“Where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, I sat and looked toward the building where Naoko lived. It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night.”