Amanda Pogue

“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Beside the road cows are lazily chewing grass. They show zero interest in the runners. They're too busy eating grass to care about all these whimsical people and their nonsensical activities. And for their part the runners don't have the leisure to pay attention to what the cows are up to, either.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“But this was the home I had chosen. I had a home, of course, when I was a child. But it was not one that I had chosen for myself. I had been born into it, presented with it as an established fact. Now, however, I lived in a world that I had chosen through an act of will. It might not be perfect, but the fundamental stance I adopted with regard to my home was to accept it, problems and all, because it was something I myself had chosen. If it had problems, these were almost certainly problems that had originated within me.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Two people can sleep in the same bed and still be alone when they close their eyes, if you know what I mean.”
― Haruki Murakami