

“Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were.”
― Kafka on the Shore
― Kafka on the Shore

“I don’t know what it means to live.”
― Kafka on the Shore
― Kafka on the Shore

“I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric.”
― No Longer Human
― No Longer Human

“I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.”
― The Brothers Karamazov
― The Brothers Karamazov

“The weak fear happiness itself. They can harm themselves on cotton wool. Sometimes they are wounded even by happiness”
― No Longer Human
― No Longer Human
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