Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

by Haruki Murakami

But talent only functions when it’s supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus.

He seemed to have been enjoying an after-lunch cup of coffee while he read.

One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of true harmony.