The Strange Library

by Haruki Murakami

Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don’t want to do?

It was a smile so radiant that the air seemed to thin around it.

A razor-thin crescent of white moon floated in the night sky.

Seeing how happy he was made me feel a little happier. No matter what the situation may be, I still take pleasure in witnessing the joy of others.

“The world follows its own course,” he said. “Each possesses his own thoughts, each treads his own path. So it is with your mother, and so it is with your starling. As it is with everyone. The world follows its own course.”

She had lost her color and had grown transparent, so that I could see the wall behind her. It’s because of the new moon, she said. It robs us of so much.

At the same time, my anxiety had turned into an anxiety quite lacking in anxiousness. And any anxiety that is not especially anxious is, in the end, an anxiety hardly worth mentioning.

Shoes you can replace, but you can’t replace your brains or your life.”

The tricky thing about mazes is that you don’t know if you’ve chosen the right path until the very end. If it turns out you were wrong, it’s usually too late to go back and start again. That’s the problem with mazes.

All the while, time marched on. Dawn was drawing near, and the pitch-black night of the new moon seemed to be softening bit by bit.

My carelessness had ruined everything—even

About how it feels to be alone, and the depth of the darkness surrounding me. Darkness as pitch black as the night of the new moon.