Killing Commendatore

by Haruki Murakami

Look deep enough into any person and you will find something shining within.

“Even if we break up like this, can we still be friends?”

stared at myself in the mirror, I thought about what it would be like to paint my own portrait. Say I were to try, what sort of self would I end up painting? Would I be able to find even a shred of affection for myself? Would I be able to discover even one thing shining within me?

My self in the mirror is just a physical reflection,

But to me my face in the mirror looked like a virtual fragment of my self that had been split in two.

You can have all the desire and ache inside you want, but what you really need is a concrete starting point.

Make time be on my side.

The courage not to fear a change in one’s lifestyle, the importance of having time on your side. And above all, discovering your own uniquely creative style and themes. Not an easy thing, of course.

Our lives really do seem strange and mysterious when you look back on them. Filled with unbelievably bizarre coincidences and unpredictable, zigzagging developments. While they are unfolding, it’s hard to see anything weird about them, no matter how closely you pay attention to your surroundings. In the midst of the everyday, these things may strike you as simply ordinary things, a matter of course. They might not be logical, but time has to pass before you can see if something is logical.

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But sometimes now I find it painful to be alone.”