Haruki Murakami

" People are strange when you're a stranger."

I would stare at the grains of light suspended in that silent space, struggling to see into my own heart. What did I want? And what did others want from me? But I could never find the answers. Sometimes I would reach out and try to grasp the grains of light, but my fingers touched nothing.

Death exists - in a paperweight, in four red and white balls on a billiard table - and we go on living and breathing it into our lungs like fine dust.

"You'll die with me?" Midori asked with shining eyes.

"Hell, no," I said. "I'll run if it gets dangerous. If you want to die, you can do it alone."

"Cold-hearted bastard!"

"I'm not going to die with you just because you made lunch for me. Of course, if it had been dinner..."

"And what is a revolution? It sure as hell isn't just changing the name on city hall."

"I have a lot more patience for others than I have for myself, and I'm much better at bringing out the best in others than in myself. That's just the kind of person I am. I'm the scratchy stuff on the side of the matchbox. But that's fine with me. I don't mind at all. Better to be a first-class matchbox than a second-class match."

"I feel like Kizuki is reaching out for me from the darkness, calling to me, "Hey, Naoko, we can't stay apart.' When I hear him saying that, I don't know what to do."

There were no loud voices and no whispers, no one laughing out loud or crying out in shock, no one yelling to another person with exaggerated gestures, nothing but quiet conversations, all carried on at the same level. People were eating in groups of three to five. Each group had a single speaker, to whom the others would listen with nods and grunts of interest, and when that person was done speaking, the next would take up the conversation. I could not tell what they were saying, but the way they said it reminded me of the strange tennis game I had seen at noon.

"But it's the working class that keep things running, and it's the working class that gets exploited. What the hell kind of revolution have you got just tossing out big words that working-class people can't understand? What the hell kind of social revolution is that?"

"Life doesn't require ideals. It requires standards of action."

Each day the sun would rise and set, the flag would be raised and lowered. Each Sunday I would have a date with my dead friend's girl. I had no idea what I was doing or what I was going to do.

I'm confused. Really confused. And it's a lot deeper than you think.