I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I’m alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world.
When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it.
You can keep as quiet as you like, but one of these days somebody is going to find you.
Reality was utterly coolheaded and utterly lonely.
That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.
This is no honky-tonk parade. 1Q84 is the real world, where a cut draws real blood, where pain is real pain and fear is real fear. The moon in the sky is no paper moon.
Life is not like water. Things in life don’t necessarily flow over the shortest possible route.
If you think about it, an unfair society is a society that makes it possible for you to exploit your abilities to the limit.
I don’t care what you do to me, but I don’t want you to hurt me. I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy.
Life is so uncertain: you never know what could happen. One way to deal with that is to keep your pajamas washed.
You throw a stone into a deep pond. Splash. The sound is big, and it reverberates throughout the surrounding area. What comes out of the pond after that? All we can do is stare at the pond, holding our breath.
Maybe it’s just hiding somewhere. Or gone on a trip to come home. But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows – maybe even tomorrow.
What we call the present is given shape by an accumulation of the past.
I go by the gut. I might not appear to have any talent but I’ve got plenty of gut instinct.
What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously.
If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.
I’m a very ordinary human being; I just happen to like reading books.
Listen up – there’s no war that will end all wars,’ Crow tells me. ‘War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that.
Everyone just keeps on disappearing. Some things vanish, like they were cut away. Others fade slowly into the mist. And all that remains is a desert.
It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.