Haruki Murakami — Norwegian Wood

Being the second Murakami I read, it gave the same nuance as Kafka on the Shore. That warm yet cold, uplifting yet lonely, really flowing nuances. Murakami really captured the essence of youth and human, threw in some philosophical points here and there, and we’ve got ourselves a captivating story in hand. I can now understand what the fuss on this book about.

The timing of reading this book also coincided with the death of my best friend. He was a real Watanabe Toru, in a sense that he lived his life right in his own way. He accommodated and acknowledged the lives of people that surrounded him, even though sometimes he didn’t understand it, nevertheless he was there. He had his principles, and lived by it. So Bach, thank you for being Watanabe Toru for all of us. I will cherish all the walks and talks we had, I can promise you that. Good luck on explaining all the weeds and alcohols to Him. Till we meet again Bach.

A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do but what he should do.

I don’t like having something to control me that way. … You are very clear about what you like and what you don’t like.

The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living.

Because we would have had to pay the world back what we owed it. The pain of growing up. We didn’t pay when we should have, so now the bills are due. Which is why Kizuki did what he did, and why I‘m in here.

What makes us most normal is knowing that we‘re not normal.

He‘s kind of a fixer, and in the end everything works out perfectly. They called this ‘deux ex machina‘.

Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.

All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world.

Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt.

That’s why you need to grab whatever chance you have for happiness where you find it, and not worry too much about other people. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a lifetime, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest our lives.

Death is not the opposite of life but an innate part of life.

Letters are just pieces of paper. Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish.