Tell me how you could say such a thing, she said, staring down at the ground beneath her feet. You're not telling me anything I don't know already. 'Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up.' What's the point of saying that to me? If I relaxed my body now, I'd fall apart. I've always lived like this, and it's the only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd never find my way back. I'd go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. Why can't you see that? How can you talk about watching over me if you can't see that?
Haruki MurakamiNot just beautiful, though โ the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And theyโre watching me. What Iโve up till now, what Iโm going to do โ they know it all. Nothing gets past their watchful eyes. As I sit there under the shining night sky, again a violent fear takes hold of me. My heartโs pounding a mile a minute, and I can barely breathe. All these millions of stars looking down on me, and Iโve never given them more than a passing thought before. Not just the stars โ how many other things havenโt I noticed in the world, things I know nothing about?
Haruki MurakamiIn this world, there is no absolute good, no absolute evil," the man said. "Good and evil are not fixed, stable entities, but are continually trading places. A good may be transformed into an evil in the next second. And vice versa. Such was the way of the world that Dostoevsky depicted in The Brothers Karamazov. The most important thing is to maintain the balance between the constantly moving good and evil. If you lean too much in either direction, it becomes difficult to maintain actual morals. Indeed, balance itself is the good.
Haruki MurakamiMy arm was not what she needed, but the arm of someone else. My warmth was not what she needed, but the warmth of someone else.
Haruki Murakami