Excerpts from the book of Haruki Murakami

I detested the term only child. Every time I heard it I felt something was missing from me—like I wasn’t quite a complete human being. The phrase only child stood there, pointing an accusatory finger at me. “Something’s not quite all there, pal,” it told me

In the world I lived in, it was an accepted idea that only children were spoiled by their parents, weak, and self-centered.

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The closest comparison might be the power of perfume. Perhaps even the master blender himself can’t explain how a fragrance that has a special power is created. Science sure can’t explain it. Still, the fact remains that a certain combination of fragrances can captivate the opposite sex like the scent of an animal in heat.

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If my actions had been proper, after all, why the need for deception?

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“For a while is a phrase whose length can’t be measured. At least by the person who’s waiting,” I said. And probably is a word whose weight is incalculable.

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“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I’m gazing at a distant star,” I said. “It’s dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn’t even exist anymore. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.”

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Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don’t know it is raining.

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