Kafka on the Shore

by Haruki Murakami

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

My eyes in the mirror are cold as a lizard’s,

Really like this phrase

intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive.

But the fear I felt clings to me like a clump of unmelted snow in the corner of a garden.

I like the imagery here :)

“Are memories such an important thing?” “It depends,” she replies, and lightly closes her eyes. “In some cases they’re the most important thing there is.”