Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

by Haruki Murakami

Anything to keep my mouth moving. Best method for repolarizing a tired brain.

I’m sure—you can tell a lot about a person’s character from his choice of sofa.

There are people who drive luxury cars, but have only second- or third-rate sofas in their homes. I put little trust in such people. An expensive automobile may well be worth its price, but it’s only an expensive automobile. If you have the money, you can buy it, anyone can buy it. Procuring a good sofa, on the other hand, requires style and experience and philosophy. It takes money, yes, but you also need a vision of the superior sofa. That sofa among sofas.

People nowadays hate t’get fat, but if you ask me, they’re looking at fat all wrong. They say it makes you unhealthy or ugly, but it’d never happen ’tall if you fatten up the right way. You live a fuller life, have more sex drive, sharpen your wits. I was good and fat when I was young.

As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don’t have to die the next.

“The mind is nothing you use,” I say. “The mind is just there. It is like the wind. You simply feel its movements.”