After Dark

by Haruki Murakami

Of what value is a civilisation that can’t toast a piece of bread as ordered?”

All we have to do is separate from the flesh, leave all substance behind, and allow ourselves to become a conceptual point of view devoid of mass.

He is considering aspects of the interrelationship of thought and action. Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action?

The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you. And once that happens, you’ve had it: things’ll never be the same. All you can do is go on living alone down there in the darkness.”

In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It’s important to combine the two in just the right amount.”

Memory is so crazy! It’s like we’ve got these drawers crammed with tons of useless stuff. Meanwhile, all the really important things we just keep forgetting, one after the other.”