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Quote by Haruki Murakami

“Where I went in my travels, it's impossible for me to recall. I remember the sights and sounds and smells clearly enough, but the names of the towns are gone, as well as any sense of the order in which I traveled from place to place.”

Quote by Haruki Murakami

Book:Norwegian Wood
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Norwegian Wood

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Haruki Murakami

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“Where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, I sat and looked toward the building where Naoko lived. It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night.”

Norwegian WoodHaruki Murakami
Book:Norwegian Wood
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“He wasn't so bad when the two of us came to see you, though. He was just his usual self." Because you were there," said Naoko. "He was always like that around you. He struggled to keep his weaknesses hidden. I'm sure he was very fond of you. He made a point of letting you see only his best side. He wasn't like that with me. He'd let his guard down. He could be really moody. One minute he'd be chattering away, and the next thing he'd be depressed. It happened all the time. He was like that from the time he was little. He did keep trying to change himself, to improve himself, though." Naoko recrossed her legs atop the sofa. He tried hard, but it didn't do any good, and that would make him really angry and sad. There was so much about him that was fine and beautiful, but he could never find the confidence he needed. "I've got to do that, I've got to change this," he was always thinking, right up to the end. Poor Kizuki!" Still though," I said, "if it's true that he was always struggling to show me his best side, I'd say he succeeded. His best side was all that I could see." Naoko smiled. "He'd be thrilled to hear you say that. You were his only friend.”

Norwegian WoodHaruki Murakami
Book:Norwegian Wood
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“When Reiko left, I stretched out on the sofa and closed my eyes. I lay there steeping myself into silence when, out of nowhere, I thought of the time Kizuki and I took a motorcycle trip. That had been autumn too, I realized. Autumn how many years ago? Yes, four years ago. I recalled the small of Kizuki's leather jacket and the racket made by that red Yamaha 125cc bike. We went to a spot far down the coast, and came back the same evening, exhausted. Nothing special happened on that trip, but I remembered it well. the sharp autumn wind moaned in my ears, and looking up at the sky, my hands clutching Kizuki's jacket, I felt as if I might be swept into outer space.”

Norwegian Wood
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“I found a Bill Evans record in the bookcase and was listening to it while drying my hair when I realized that it was the record I had played in Naoko's room on the night of her birthday, the night she cried and I took her in my arms. That had happened only six months earlier, but it felt like something from a much remoter past. Maybe it felt that way because I had thought about it so often-too often, to the point where it had distorted my sense of time.”

Norwegian Wood
Book:Norwegian Wood
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