when you develop an infatuation for someone, you always find a reason to believe that this is exactly the person for you.

it doesn't need to be a good reason, a bad one will do just as well. taking photographs of the night sky, for example: in the long run that's just the kind of dumb irritating habit that would cause you to split up.

but at the time, it's the charming eccentricity you've been searching for all these years.

i telephoned midori. "i have to talk to you," i said. "i have a million things to talk to you about. a million things we have to talk about. all i want in this world is you. i want to see you and talk. i want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning."

midori responded with a long, long silence -- the silence of all the misty rain in the world falling on all the new-mown lawns of the world. forehead pressed to the glass, i shut my eyes and waited. at last, midori's quiet voice broke the silence: "where are you now?"

where was i now?

i raised my head and turned to see what lay beyond the telephone booth. where was i now? i had no idea. no idea at all. where was this place? all that flashed into my eyes were the countless shapes of people walking by to nowhere. again and again, i called out for midori from the dead centre of this place that was no place.

my love for you is completely irrational and uncategorical.

feelings are not reality.

we can't simply hurl our dissatisfactions into the face of whoever has offended us and so a rift develops in what had been a perfectly harmonious relationship. in this way, each day we compact our discontent and our resentment into the bottom of our hearts, but they don't just dissolve there. suppressed passion never dissipates. in reality, these emotions are stored up in our hearts, where they smolder like embers in a hibachi.

from NORWEGIAN WOOD by Haruki Murakami