Eric Hinkle

“Tucker is on a roll. It usually takes two beers for him to like himself but tonight he only needs half a can.”
― Peter Hedges, What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“I think Kitaru is honestly seeking something. In his own way, at his own pace, very genuinely and directly. It's just that I don't think he's grasped yet what it is. That's why he can't make any progress, and that applies to all kinds of things. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it’s not easy to look for it.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hombres sin mujeres

“I realized that it was not Ko-san, now safely ditched for ever, but Ko-san's mother who stood in need of pity and consideration. She must still live on in this hard unpitying world, but he, once he had jumped [in battle], had jumped beyond such things. The case could well have been different, had he never jumped; but he did jump; and that, as they say, is that. Whether this world's weather turns out fine or cloudy no more worries him; but it matters to his mother. It rains, so she sits alone indoors thinking about Ko-san. And now it's fine, so she potters out and meets a friend of Ko-san's. She hangs out the national flag to welcome the returned soliders, but her joy is made querulous with wishing that Ko-san were alive. At the public bath-house, some young girl of marriageable age helps her to carry a bucket of hot water: but her pleasure from that kindness is soured as she thinks if only I had a daughter-in-law like this girl. To live under such conditions is to live in agonies. Had she lost one out of many children, there would be consolation and comfort in the mere fact of the survivors. But when loss halves a family of just one parent and one child, the damage is as irreparable as when a gourd is broken clean across its middle. There's nothing left to hang on to. Like the sergeant's mother, she too had waited for her son's return, counting on shriveled fingers the passing of the days and nights before that special day when she would be able once more to hang on him. But Ko-san with the flag jumped resolutely down into the ditch and still has not climbed back.”
― Sōseki Natsume, Ten Nights of Dream, Hearing Things, The Heredity of Taste

“It's strange, isn't it?' the woman said in a pensive voice. 'Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those who care about a broken lock, and others who are dutiful enough to try to fix it... But maybe that's the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hombres sin mujeres