Mance

“Nobody yelled or ran out of the door. Nobody blew a police whistle. Everything was quiet and sunny and calm. No cause for excitement whatever. It's only Marlowe, finding another body. He does it rather well by now. Murder-a-day Marlowe, they call him. They have the meat wagon following him around to follow up on the business he finds.

A nice enough fellow, in an ingenuous sort of way.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake

“Why should one not enjoy in a light-hearted sort of way stories of ladies and gentlemen who fall in love and express their feelings for each other, often in most elegant phrases?”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

“Because I have no sense of self. I have no personality, no brilliant color. I have nothing to offer. That’s always been my problem. I feel like an empty vessel. I have a shape, I guess, as a container, but there’s nothing inside. I just can’t see myself as the right person for her. I think that the more time passes, and the more she knows about me, the more disappointed Sara will be, and the more she’ll choose to distance herself from me.”
― Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“The strength I'm looking for isn't the type where you win or lose. I'm not after a wall that'll repel power coming from outside. What I want is the kind of strength to be able to absorb that kind of power, to stand up to it. The strength to quietly endure things - unfairness, misfortunes, sadness, mistakes, misunderstandings.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore