“One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of true harmony.”
― Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
― Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
“I've always hated the notion, in life or in fiction, that the human personality is a puzzle to be solved, that we are a single flashback away from understanding why this person is cruel to her children, why that man has a dreamy, downcast look. A human being is not a lock and the past is not a key.”
― The Hero of This Book
― The Hero of This Book
“It is only when you get older that everyone makes you feel bad about being alone, or implies that spending time with other people is somehow better, because it proves you to be likeable.
But being unlikeable wasn't the reason she was alone. She was alone so she could hear herself thinking. She was alone so she could hear herself living.”
― Pure Colour
But being unlikeable wasn't the reason she was alone. She was alone so she could hear herself thinking. She was alone so she could hear herself living.”
― Pure Colour
“Perhaps living contentedly is just finding pursuits that distract you from thoughts of oblivion.”
― Tennis Lessons
― Tennis Lessons
“She is in all of his spaces and all of his thoughts. He contemplates formulas and degrees of rationality and they all turn into her. He thinks about time, which has only recently begun, or at least now feels different. He thinks: the Babylonians were wrong; time is made of her.”
― Alone With You in the Ether
― Alone With You in the Ether
Joab’s 2025 Year in Books
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