At the End of the Matinee Quotes

“People think that only the future can be changed, but in fact, the future is continually changing the past. The past can and does change. It’s exquisitely sensitive and delicately balanced.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“From now on, people would forevermore be creatures of exhaustion, distinguished from other animals by their continual state of fatigue. Caught up in the tempo of machines and computers, their senses buffeted by constant noise, people griped about daily life with piteous intensity before entering the complete silence obtainable only by death.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Music is born in opposition to the beauty of silence; the creation of music lies in the attempt to use sound to bring about new beauty that contrasts with the beauty of silence.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“People think that only the future can be changed, but in fact, the future is continually changing the past.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Compared to a maze where every wrong path led to a dead end and forced you to retrace your steps, a maze with no dead ends and only different exits was far crueler.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Loneliness, when it came down to it, was the awareness of your utter lack of influence in the world—knowing that you could and would have zero influence on either your contemporaries or on future generations.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“If he were to “perform” John Cage’s famous 4′33″ composition now, the instrumentation would be utterly different from the year before.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Knowing that the number thirty would steadily shrink made his remaining time seem neither abstract nor abundant.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Truly our times resemble in strangeness all others that history mentions, in tradition sacred or profane. In times like these, whoever has lived yesterday and today encounters so many events piled together that he has already lived years.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“The appearance on the scene of a fresh talent was not necessarily a threat. What felt cruel was to be passed by and ignored.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Perhaps she loved him too. Every time he found a sign that she might, he felt the anguish of love, yet when he reconsidered and thought he must be wrong, he was in anguish again.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“After a certain age, when a man goes to bed with a woman who has no intellect, he feels rotten the morning after.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Facts are facts,” he said. “In today’s world, probably nothing is more important than verifying the truth of information. News that’s fake or biased can change the fate of a country, or a person, for the worse.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“What was love if it failed to inspire the desire to be worthy of the one you cherished?”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Beauty is like an aging singer barely managing to continue performing, her popularity fading away.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Free will is necessary to have hope for the future. People need to believe that there is something they can do to make a difference. Right? But at the same time, free will increases their remorse over the past. They feel there must have been something they could have done. Sometimes, a belief in destiny is comforting.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“But while fiction makes it possible to refrain from revealing some secrets, it is the only way to reveal others.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Happiness was having someone with whom to share all the everyday experiences of his world.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“People are spurred to act less by eager dreams of a happy future than by anxiety over the danger, remote or otherwise, of remaining stuck in the status quo.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“People need to believe that there is something they can do to make a difference.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“Victims have to be regarded as human beings.”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee

“What is music for?”
― Keiichirō Hirano, At the End of the Matinee