# Quote — Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

> Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through, is now like something from the distant past. We're so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past, like ancient stars that have burned out, are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn. New styles, new information, new technology, new terminology ... But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone. And for me, what happened in the woods that day is one of these.

- Author: [Haruki Murakami](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami.md)
- Book: [Kafka on the Shore](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/kafka-on-the-shore.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kafka_on_the_Shore#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/kafka-on-the-shore/most-things-are

## More from this book

> It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It's just as Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibility. Turn this on its head and you could say that where there's no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/kafka-on-the-shore/its-all-a-question.md)

> Where does your responsibility begin here? Wiping away the nebula from your sight, you struggle to find where you really are. You're trying to find the direction of the flow, struggling to hold on to the axis of time. But you can't locate the borderline separating dream and reality. Or even the boundary between what's real and what's possible. All you're sure of is that you're in a delicate position. Delicate-and dangerous. You're pulled along, a part of it, unable to pin down the principles of prophecy, or of logic. Like when a river overflows, washing over a town, all road signs have sunk beneath the waves. And all you can see are the anonymous roofs of the sunken houses.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/kafka-on-the-shore/where-does-your.md)

> And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. 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. That's what this storm's all about.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/kafka-on-the-shore/and-you-really.md)