1Q84: Books 1 and 2

gingerly

She would turn into smoke, rise up into the sky, and mix with the clouds. Then she would come down to the earth again as rain, and nurture some nameless patch of grass with no story to tell.

Whatever the composition of this new world might be, I surely have no choice but to accept it in silence. There’s no way to pick and choose. Even in the world that existed until now, there was no choice. It’s the same thing. And besides, he asked himself, even if I wanted to lodge a complaint, who is there for me to complain to? The

In McLuhanesque terms, the medium is the message. Some people might find that cool.”

The earth ground slowly to a halt, and all sound and light vanished. When he woke up the next day, the world was still there, and things were already moving forward, like the great karmic wheel of Indian mythology that kills every living thing in its path.

colloquial,

Ptolemaic

W. C. Handy blues songs, performed by the young Louis Armstrong, with Barney Bigard on clarinet and Trummy Young on trombone.

It was probably Chekhov who said that the novelist is not someone who answers questions but someone who asks them. It was a memorable phrase, but Chekhov applied this attitude not only to his works but to his life as well.

Her mouth showed slight movements now and then but emitted no sound. She almost seemed to be listening out of sheer politeness to a conversation about a stranger far away.