If you are a fan of Murakami, you should read this book as well. But I have a disclaimer, this book is really long. It took more than 1 month for me to complete the reading of this book. I read the digital version and when I see the original version in the book store, I said "wow, that is so long!". And out of this book, let's see what I highlight:
There was a
small stand of trees nearby, and from it you could hear the mechanical cry of a
bird that sounded as if it were winding a spring. We called it the wind-up
bird.
Cats have
their own way of living. They’re not stupid. If a cat stopped living where you
happened to be, that meant it had decided to go somewhere else. If it got tired
and hungry, it would come back.
When you don’t have anything to do, your thoughts get really, really far out—so far out you can’t follow them all the way to the end.
We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close are we able to come to that person’s essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?
Would I ever
see the rest? Or would I grow old and die without ever really knowing her? If
that was all that lay in store for me, then what was the point of this married
life I was leading? What was the point of my life at all if I was spending it
in bed with an unknown companion?
It’s not a
question of better or worse. The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up
when you’re supposed to go up and down when you’re supposed to go down. When
there’s no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up.
Abandon the
self, and there you are.
The world
existed in two states, raining and nonraining, and there should be a line of
demarcation between the two.
Fool
yourself to fool others.
You have the
right to choose your own life. You can start again. If you want a cat, all you
have to do is choose a life in which you can have a cat. It’s simple.
As the body
develops, the volume of pain increases proportionately.
The weirder
the request, the bigger the tip.
Save your
energy for the things that money can’t buy.
It must be hard for you, but there is a right time for everything. Like the ebb and flow of the tides. No one can do anything to change them. When it is time to wait, you must wait.
Results
aside, the ability to have complete faith in another human being is one of the
finest qualities a person can possess.
In truly
deep darkness, all kinds of strange things were possible.
You might
think you made a new world or a new self, but your old self is always gonna be
there, just below the surface, and if something happens, it’ll stick its head
out and say ‘Hi.’
The
fundamental principle of things like roads and rivers is for them to flow.
Block them and they stagnate.
Without a
true self, though, a person can not go on living. It is like the ground we
stand on. Without the ground, we can build nothing.
Money had no
name, of course. And if it did have a name, it would no longer be money. What
gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking
interchangeability.
If I had
anything in my favor, it was that I had nothing to lose. Probably.
I could
never have tied a tie so well, and I found myself wondering how he did it. Was
it an inborn talent or the fruits of disciplined practice?
“Where
there’s a will there’s a way” just doesn’t apply to baldness.
I tell you,
Mr. Okada, a cold beer at the end of the day is the best thing life has to
offer. Some choosy people say that a too cold beer doesn’t taste good, but I
couldn’t disagree more.
What is it
they say? ‘No man is an island.’ Or is it ‘The devil finds mischief for idle
hands’?”
I guess time
doesn’t flow in order, does it—A, B, C, D? It just sort of goes where it feels
like going.
That’s our
job: finding the point of compromise. If they won’t sell you the refrigerator,
make them sell you some ice.
“Going bad”
is something that happens over a longer period of time.
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