Here are some of my favourite quotes from Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the shore:

• Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.
• 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.
• Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time.
• A certain type of perfection can only be realised through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.
• 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.
• Not just beautiful, though, the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they are watching you.
• I close my eyes and relax, letting my tense muscles go loose. I listen to the steady hum of the train. And then, without warning, a warm tear spills from my eye, runs down my cheek to my mouth, and after a while, dries up. No matter, I tell myself. It's just one tear. It doesn't even feel like it's mine, more like part of the rain outside.
• If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.
• Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip 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. That's something you can't do unless you get there.
• Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing is going to change just because you can't see what's going on. Infact, 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.

• For every theory,there has to be counter evidence - otherwise science wouldn't progress.
• It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibilities begin with the power to imagine. It's just like Yeats said: In dream begin responsibilities. Flip this around and you could say that where there is no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise.
• You're afraid of imagination and even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the responsibility that begins in dreams. But you have to sleep and dreams are a part of sleep. When you are awake, you can suppress imagination. But you can't suppress dreams.
• But that calm won't last long, you know. It's like beasts that never tire, tracking you everywhere you go. They come out at you deep in the forest. They are tough, relentless, merciless, untiring and they never give up.
• Of course it's important to know what's right and what's wrong. Individual errors in judgement 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. 

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