The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

by Haruki Murakami

What’s important is the time we have now. The present. Don’t you agree?”

Is it possible, finally, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another? We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close are we able to come to that person’s essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?

The passage of time will usually extract the venom from most things and render them harmless. Then, sooner or later, I forget about them.

a person’s destiny is something you look back at after it’s past, not something you see in advance.

by not thinking about myself I can get closer to the core of my self