Andreea Ciocan's Key Ideas from Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami

“If you had to say anything it's would be this: whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.”

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

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

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

“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“It’s all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine.”