dangerous at every speed

“Most of these student types are total frauds. They’re scared to death somebody’s gonna find out they don’t know something. They all read the same books and they spout the same slogans, and they love listening to John Coltrane and seeing Pasolini movies. You call that ‘revolution?’… Well, if that’s a revolution, you can stick it. They’d probably shoot me for putting umeboshi in my rice balls, They’d shoot you, too, for understanding the subjunctive…Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. I’m working class. Revolution or not, the working class will just keep on scraping a living in the same old shitholes. And what is a revolution? It sure as hell isn’t just changing the name on city hall. But those guys don’t know that - those guys with their big words. Tell me, Watanabe, have you ever seen a taxman?”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“In the deepening spring of May, I had no choice but to recognise the trembling of my own heart. It usually happened as the sun was going down. In the pale evening gloom, when the soft fragrance of magnolias hung in the air, my heart would swell without warning, and tremble, and lurch with a stab of pain. I would try clamping my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, and wait for it to pass. And it would pass - but slowly, taking its own time, and leaving a dull ache in its path.”
― Haruki Murakami

“To be rendered powerless does not destroy your humanity. Your resilience is your humanity. The only people who lose their humanity are those who believe they have the right to render another human being powerless. They are the weak. To yield and not break, that is incredible strength.”
― Hannah Gadsby

“So that’s when it hit me. These guys are fakes. All they’ve got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they’re so proud of, while sticking their hands up their skirts. And when they graduate, they cut their hair short and march off to work for Mitsubishi or IBM or Fuji Bank. They have pretty wives who’ve never read Marx and have kids they give fancy new names that are enough to make you puke. Smash what educational-industrial complex? Don’t make me laugh!”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood