I read this book in 2012. I loved it. It is among the top 10 books that I have ever read. After reading SUM inspiration struck to start reading it again:
Excerpts from the 2012 read:
- His mind floated in the amniotic fluid of memory, listening for echoes of the past.
- He went home, went to bed, and dreamed. He hadn’t had such a vivid dream in a very long time. He was a tiny piece in a gigantic puzzle. But instead of having one fixed shape, his shape kept changing. And so – of course – he couldn’t fit anywhere.
- Aomame said, “Even if things were the same, people’s perception of them might have been very different back then. The darkness of night was probably deeper then, so the moon must have been that much bigger and brighter. And of course people didn’t have records or tapes or CDs. They couldn’t hear proper performances of music anytime they liked: it was always something special.” “I’m sure you’re right,” the dowager said. “Things are so convenient for us these days, our perceptions are probably that much duller. Even if it’s the same moon hanging in the sky, we may be looking at something quite different. Four hundred years ago, we might have had richer spirits that were closer to nature.”
- “It takes both time and money to build up or discover something important. Of course, time and money are not in themselves a guarantee of great results, but they can’t hurt. The total amount of time available is especially limited. The clock is ticking as we speak. Time rushes past. Opportunities are lost right and left. If you have money, you can buy time. You can even buy freedom if you want. Time and freedom: those are the most important things that people can buy with money.”
- A person’s last moments are an important thing. You can’t choose how you’re born, but you can choose how you die.”
- The world moves less by money than by what you owe people and what they owe you.
- It was, however, without a doubt, Tengo’s father—or, rather, the wreckage of Tengo’s father. The two intervening years had taken much from him physically, the way a merciless tax collector strips a poor family’s house of all its possessions.
- “Crows can’t think about time. Probably only humans have the concept of time.” “Why,” she asked. “Humans see time as a straight line. It’s like putting notches on a long straight stick. The notch here is the future, the one on this side is the past, and the present is this point right here. Do you understand?” “I think so.” “But actually time isn’t a straight line. It doesn’t have a shape. In all senses of the term, it doesn’t have any form. But since we can’t picture something without form in our minds, for the sake of convenience we understand it as a straight line. At this point, humans are the only ones who can make that sort of conceptual substitution.” “But maybe we are the ones who are wrong.” Tengo mulled this over. “You mean we may be wrong to see time as a straight line?” “That’s a possibility. Maybe we’re wrong and the crow is right. Maybe time is nothing at all like a straight line. Perhaps it’s shaped like a twisted doughnut. But for tens of thousands of years, people have probably been seeing time as a straight line that continues on forever. And that’s the concept they based their actions on. And until now they haven’t found anything inconvenient or contradictory about it. So as an experiential model, it’s probably correct.”
- I was confident that I was a special person. But time slowly chips away at life. People don’t just die when their time comes. They gradually die away, from the inside. And finally the day comes when you have to settle accounts. Nobody can escape it. People have to pay the price for what they’ve received. I have only just learned that truth.”
- The pursuer’s blind spot is that he never thinks he’s being pursued.
- Time was flowing leisurely, like a river approaching an estuary.
- “No man is capable enough to live forever.”
- But I never count on luck. That’s how I’ve survived all these years.”
- “You said you’re going far away,” Tamaru said. “How far away are we talking about?” “It’s a distance that can’t be measured.” “Like the distance that separates one person’s heart from another’s.”
- Inside him, twenty years dissolved and mixed into one complex, swirling whole. Everything that had accumulated over the years—all he had seen, all the words he had spoken, all the values he had held—all of it coalesced into one solid, thick pillar in his heart, the core of which was spinning like a potter’s wheel.
- Wordlessly, Tengo observed the scene, as if watching the destruction and rebirth of a planet.
- Once time has passed, it can’t be taken back. If death brings about any resolution, it’s one that only applies to the deceased.
- It’s a Barnum and Bailey world, Just as phony as it can be, But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me.
- Aomame pressed an ear against his chest. “I’ve been lonely for so long. And I’ve been hurt so deeply. If only I could have met you again a long time ago, then I wouldn’t have had to take all these detours to get here.” Tengo shook his head. “I don’t think so. This way is just fine. This is exactly the right time. For both of us.” Aomame started to cry. The tears she had been holding back spilled down her cheeks and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Large teardrops fell audibly onto the sheets like rain. Tengo put his arms around her and held her. He would be holding her close from now on, a thought that made him happier than he could imagine. “We needed that much time,” Tengo said, “to understand how lonely we really were.”