From Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami:
- I was impressed anew by the variety of dreams and goals that life could offer. This was one of the very first new impressions I received when I came to Tokyo for the first time. The thought struck me that society needed a few people - just a few - who were interested in and even passionate about map making.
- Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.
- "That's why I read them, If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking..."
- "I don't know, it's stupid being twenty," she said. "I'm just not ready. It feels weird. Like somebody's pushing me from behind."
- How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts to a person like this is truly marvelous. Of course, once I do put them into words, I find I can only express a fraction of what I want to say, but that's all right. I'm happy just to be able to feel I want to write to someone. And so I am writing to you.
- I know this will sound strange, but when I look at the people around me during a game, they all look equally deformed.
I said this one day to the doctor in charge of my case, and he told me that, in a sense, what I was feeling was right, that we are in here not to correct the deformation but to accustom ourselves to it: that one of our problems was our inability to recognize and accept our own deformities. Just as each person has certain idiosyncrasies in the way they think and feel and see things, and though you might want to correct them, it doesn't happen overnight, and if you try to force the issue in our case, something else might go funny.
- " The most important thing is not to let yourself get impatient," Reiko said. " This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don't get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can't do anything, don't get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it's ready to come undone. You have to figure it's going to be a long process and that you'll work on things slowly, one at a time.."
- Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It's like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. So stop eating yourself alive. Things will go where they're supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. Despite your best efforts, people are going to get hurt when it's time for them to be hurt. Life is like that. .... I'm just a powerless and imperfect woman, but still htere are times when I think to myself how wonderful life can be! Believe me, it's true! So stop what you're doing this minute and get happy. Work at making yourself happy!
Needless to say, I do feel sorry that you and Naoko could not see things through a happy ending. But who can say is best? That's why you need to grabe whatever chance you have for happiness where you find it, and not worry too much about other people.
- "I'm scared," she said. "So scared, I could go crazy just like that. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, flung out here all by myself." She Paused. "But 'Go crazy just like.' Kind of a cool expression, don't you think?"
