Kafka on the Shore

by Haruki Murakami

But there’d be the occasional involuntary flinch, ever so slight, that he couldn’t cover up.

Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.

“Kafka, in everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward any more. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.”

For me, inside this physical body – this defective container – the most important job is surviving from one day to the next. It could be simple, or very hard. It all depends on how you look at it. Either way, even if things go well, that’s not some great achievement. Nobody’s going to give me a standing ovation or anything.”

“To be honest about it, I’m not trying to die. I’m just waiting for death to come. Like sitting on a bench at the station, waiting for the train.”

“Having an object that symbolises freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents.”

“Writing things was important, wasn’t it?” Nakata asked. “Yes, it was. The process of writing was important. Even though the finished product is meaningless.”