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"Jean Valjean has a crisis of conscience, weighing the good against the bad." — Apr 13, 2025 06:47PM
"Jean Valjean has a crisis of conscience, weighing the good against the bad." — Apr 13, 2025 06:47PM
The only way that true growth occurs in your life is when you do something that you want to do. This is not unique to you, whenever anyone wants to change a belief that they have or action that they’re doing or not doing, it only becomes
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“Become like a sheet of blotting paper and soak it all in. Later on you can figure out what to keep and what to unload.”
― Kafka on the Shore
― Kafka on the Shore

“Only people who've been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I'm as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they're doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don't want to. Like that lovely pair we just met.” He sighs and twirls the long slender pencil in his hand. “Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas-- none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't. With those women--I should've just let it slide, or else called Miss Saeki and let her handle it. She would have given them a smile and smoothed things over. But I just can't do “do that. I say things I shouldn't, do things I shouldn't do. I can't control myself. That's one of my weak points. Do you know why that's a weak point of mine?”
“'Cause if you take every single person who lacks much imagination seriously, there's no end to it,” I say.”
― Kafka on the Shore
“'Cause if you take every single person who lacks much imagination seriously, there's no end to it,” I say.”
― Kafka on the Shore

“But thing in the past are like plate that’s shattered to pieces. You can never put it back together like it was, right?”
― Kafka on the Shore
― Kafka on the Shore

“Listen, every object's in flux. The Earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil--they're all fluid and in transition. They don't stay in one form or in one place forever. The whole universe is like some big FedEx box.”
― Kafka on the Shore
― Kafka on the Shore

“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads--at least that's where I imagine it--there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library.”
― Kafka on the Shore
― Kafka on the Shore
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