Kafka on the Shore

Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad 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.

"Kafka, in everybody's life there's a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can't go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That's how we survive."

And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in

No matter how far you run. Distance might not solve anything."

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”

As long as there’s such a thing as time, everybody’s damaged in the end, changed into something else. It always happens, sooner or later.

“Your life’s just begun and there’s a ton of things out in the world you’ve never laid eyes on. Things you never could imagine.”

I've always been a great fan of the Chunichi Dragons, he thought, but what are the Dragons to me, anyway? Say they beat the Giants—how's that going to make me a better person? How could it? So why the heck have I spent all this time getting worked up like the team was some extension of myself?

So I have to make it on my own. I have to get stronger—like a stray crow. That's why I gave myself the name Kafka. That's what Kafka means in Czech, you know—crow."

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."