Ben

“When the train stopped at both those stations, lots of passengers got off, but there was no reaction whatsoever from anyone to my turning around to open the windows. No one said a thing, everyone was so quiet. No response, no communication. I lived in America for a year, and believe me, if the same thing had happened in America there would have been a real scene. With everyone shouting, “What’s going on here?” and coming together to find the cause.”
― Haruki Murakami, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

“It wasn’t until the autumn that it really sank in, little by little. For instance, if someone had fallen down right in front of me, I like to think I’d have helped. But what if they fell fifty yards away? Would I go out of my way to help? I wonder. I might have seen it as somebody else’s business and walked on by. If I’d gotten involved I’d have been late for work …”
― Haruki Murakami, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

“Although they knew that a suspicious object had been sighted on board train B801, and knew that it had caused numerous casualties, not one person thought to take the train out of service at any point.”
― Haruki Murakami, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

“Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don’t know where he came from, nor who or what he was.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit