Kafka On the Shore

“Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe.” 

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

“The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.” 

“Her smile steps offstage for a moment, then does an encore, all while I'm dealing with my blushing face.”

“Nakata's empty inside... Do you know what it means to be completely empty? Being empty is like a vacant house. An unlocked, vacant house. Anybody can come in, anytime they want. That's what scares me the most.”

“I’m walking by the shores of consciousness. Waves of consciousness roll in, roll out, leave some writing, and just as quickly new waves roll in and erase it. I try to quickly read what’s written there, between one wave and the next, but its hard. Before I can read it the next wave’s washed it away. All that’s left are puzzling fragments.”

“Liquidate it with extreme prejudice.”

“Oshima folds up the newspapers and says, “Which leaves us with the fact that strange, inexplicable events are occurring one after the other. Maybe it’s just a series of coincidences, but it still bothers me. There’s something about it I can’t unravel.”
“Maybe it’s a metaphor?” I venture.
“Maybe … But sardines and mackerel and leeches falling from the sky? What kind of metaphor is that?”

“What does it matter what it’s called?” she continues. “You’ve got your restrooms and your food. Your fluorescent lights and your plastic chairs. Crappy coffee. Strawberry-jam sandwiches. It’s all pointless–assuming you try to find a point to it. We’re all coming from somewhere, heading somewhere else. That’s all you need to know, right?”

“Shut up behind my ribcage, my warm heart expands and contracts independent of my will - over and over.”

“According to Aristophanes in Plato's The Banquet, in the ancient world of legend there were three types of people.
In ancient times people weren't simply male or female, but one of three types : male/male, male/female or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangment and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everyone in half, right down the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing half.”

“Hey, Mr. Nakata. Gramps. Fire! Flood! Earthquake! Revolution! Godzilla's on the loose! Get up!” 

“Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard.” 

“I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world.” 

"'When I was fifteen,' Miss Saeki says with a smile, 'all I wanted was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anybody's reach. A place beyond the flow of time.'"

“If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.” 

“Now I know exactly how dangerous the forest can be. And I hope I never forget it. Just like Crow said, the world’s filled with things I don’t know about. All the plants and trees there, for instance. I’d never imagined that trees could be so weird and unearthly. I mean, the only plants I’ve ever really seen or touched till now are the city kind—neatly trimmed and cared-for bushes and trees. But the ones here—the ones living here—are totally different. They have a physical power, their breath grazing any humans who might chance by, their gaze zeroing in on the intruder like they’ve spotted their prey. Like they have some dark, prehistoric, magical powers. Like deep-sea creatures rule the ocean depths, in the forest trees reign supreme. If it wanted to, the forest could reject me—or swallow me up whole.”

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”

“Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time.” 

“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.” 

“Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still.” 

“Did I do the right thing?
“You did the right thing,” the boy named Crow says. “You did what was best. No one else could have done as well as you did. After all, you’re the genuine article: the toughest fifteen-year-old in the world.”
“But I still don’t know anything about life,” I protest.
“Look at the painting,” he says. “And listen to the wind.”
I nod.
“I know you can do it.”
I nod again.
“You’d better get some sleep,” the boy named Crow says. “When you wake up, you’ll be part of a brand-new world.”
You finally fall asleep. And when you wake up, it’s true.
You are part of a brand-new world.”

“Not just beautiful, though--the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me.”

“A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.”

“What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.” 

“Being with her I feel a pain, like a frozen knife stuck in my chest. An awful pain, but the funny thing is I'm thankful for it. It's like that frozen pain and my very existence are one.
The pain is an anchor, mooring me here.”

“Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to sleep through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there- to the edge of the world. There's something you can't do unless you get there.”

“It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.” 

“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 are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about everyday, too many new things we have to learn. 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.”

“If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.” 

“Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were.”

“When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.”

“Each person feels pain in his own way, each has his own scars.”

“Chance encounters are what keep us going.” 

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
An 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.”

“But if something did happen, it happened. Whether it’s right or wrong. I accept everything that happens, and that’s how I became the person I am now.”

“But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T.S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they’re doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you. Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas – none of them bother me. I don’t care what banner they raise. But what I can’t stand are hollow people. When I’m with them, I can’t bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn’t… do things I shouldn’t do. I can’t control myself.
But there’s one thing I want you to remember, Kafka. Those are exactly the kind of people who murdered Miss Saeki’s childhood sweetheart... Of course it’s important to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive. They’re a lost cause, and I don’t want anyone like that coming in here.”

“Things outside you are projections of what’s inside you, and what’s inside you is a projection of what’s outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you’re stepping into the labyrinth inside. Most definitely a risky business.”

“When I first met you, I felt a kind of contradiction in you. You’re seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away for all you’re worth.”

“In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion.”

“The police, Hoshino concluded, not for the first time in his life, are just gangsters who get paid by the state.”

“Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library."

“Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars.” 

“Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.”

“Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks.
All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That’s it. That’s my heart.”

“That’s what love’s all about, Kafka. You’re the one having those wonderful feelings, but you have to go it alone as you wander through the dark. Your mind and body have to bear it all. All by yourself.”

“That's why I like listening to Schubert while I'm driving. Like I said, it's because all his performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of - that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally I find that encouraging.” 

“I forget my name. I had one, I know I did, but somewhere along the line I didn’t need it anymore. So it’s slipped my mind.”

“Before long the borders of his consciousness fluttered around, just like the butterflies. Beyond these borders lay a dark abyss. Occasionally his consciousness would fly over the border and hover over that dizzying black crevasse. But Nakata wasn't afraid of the darkness or how deep it was. And why should he be? That bottomless world of darkness, that weighty silence and chaos, was an old friend, a part of him already. Nakata understood this well. In that world there was no writing, no days of the week, no scary Governor, no opera, no BMWs. No scissors, no tall hats. On the other hand, there was also no delicious eel, no tasty bean-jam buns. Everything is there, but there are no parts. Since there are no parts, there's no need to replace one thing with another. No need to remove anything, or add anything. You don't have to think about difficult things, just let yourself soak it all in. For Nakata, nothing could be better.”