Kafka on the Shore
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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between August 5 - August 18, 2023
27%
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Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It’s just like Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibilities. Flip this around and you could say that where there’s no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise.
28%
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the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me. What I’ve done up till now, what I’m going to do—they know it all. Nothing gets past their watchful eyes.
28%
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As I sit there under the shining night sky, again a violent fear takes hold of me. My heart’s pounding a mile a minute, and I can barely breathe. All these millions of stars looking down on me, and I’ve never given them more than a passing thought before. Not just stars—how many other things haven’t I noticed in the world, things I know nothing about? I suddenly feel helpless, completely powerless. And I know I’ll never outrun that awful feeling.
30%
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That’s the kind of world we live in, Mr. Nakata. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.”
57%
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“The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.”
58%
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“A revelation leaps over the borders of the everyday. A life without revelation is no life at all. What you need to do is move from reason that observes to reason that acts.
63%
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“Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad
63%
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when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s just a natural feeling.
67%
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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.”
67%
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“Strength itself becomes your morality.”
71%
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‘Pointless thinking is worse than no thinking at all.’”
74%
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“I’m not really sure I understand what being bored means.” “You’ve never been bored before?” “No, not even once.” “You know, I kind of had the feeling that might be the case.”
75%
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Your brain is so full of her it’s ready to burst, your body about to explode into pieces. Still, no matter how much you want her to be here, no matter how long you wait, she never appears.
82%
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“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”