Kafka on the Shore

by Haruki Murakami

And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

The clock shows three p.m., the two hands cold and distant. They’re pretending to be noncommittal, but I know they’re not on my side.

A slammed-together, rough sort of face you can’t ignore.

It’s hard to tell the difference between sea and sky. Between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.

that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.

People soon get tired of things that aren’t boring, but not of what is boring. Go figure.

You’re afraid of imagination. And even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the responsibility that begins in dreams. But you have to sleep, and dreams are a part of sleep. When you’re awake you can suppress imagination. But you can’t suppress dreams.

Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what’s going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes.

If I sound like I’m always predicting ominous things, it’s because I’m a pragmatist.

But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they’re doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don’t want to.

If you try to use your head to think about things, people don’t want to have anything to do with you.”

Reality and dreams are all mixed up, like seawater and river water flowing together.

The people who build high, strong fences are the ones who survive the best. You deny that reality only at the risk of being driven into the wilderness yourself.”

A bit of shape and form has disappeared from the world, increasing the amount of nothingness.”

The silence grew deeper, so deep that if you listened carefully you might very well catch the sound of the earth revolving on its axis.

Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won’t be able to escape it.