“I’m free, I think. I shut my eyes and think hard and deep about how free I am, but I can’t really understand what it means. All I know is I’m totally alone. All alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who’s lost his compass and his map. Is this what it means to be free? I don’t know, and I give up thinking about it.”
― Kafka on the Shore
― Kafka on the Shore
“Why?" she screamed. "Are you crazy? You know the English subjunctive, you understand trigonometry, you can read Marx, and you don't know the answer to something as simple as that? Why do you even have to ask? Why do you have to make a girl SAY something like this? I like you more than I like him, that's all. I wish I had fallen in love with somebody a little more handsome, of course. But I didn't. I fell in love with you!”
― Norwegian Wood
― Norwegian Wood
“No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.”
― Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
― Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks - on your body or on your heart - are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”
― The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones
― The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones
“The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues.
...
[But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings.”
― Kafka on the Shore
...
[But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings.”
― Kafka on the Shore
Psyche’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Psyche’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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