Kafka on the Shore

"Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."
— Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

Great Sonnets

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring barque,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved."
— William Shakespeare (Great Sonnets)

A Walk to Remember

"do you love me?' i asked her. she smiled. 'yes.' 'do you want me to be happy?' as i asked her this i felt my heart beginning to reace. 'of corse i do.' 'will you do something for me then?' she looked away, sadness crossing her features. 'i dont know if i can anymore.' she said. 'but if you could, would you?' i cannot adequately describe the intensity of what i was feeling at that moment. love, anger, sadness, hope, and fear, whirling together sharpened by the nervousness i was feeling. jamie looked at me curiously any my breaths became shallower. suddenly i knew that id never felt as strongly for another person as i did at that moment. as i returned her gaze, this simple realization made me wish for the millionth time that i could make all this go away. had it been possible, i would have traded my life for hers. i wanted to tell her my thoughts, but the sound of her voice suddenly silenced the emotions inside me. 'yes' she finally said, her voice weak yet somehow still full of promise. ' i would.' finally getting control of myself i kissed her again, then brot my hand to her face, gently running my fingers over her cheek. i marveled at the softness of her skin, the gentleness i saw in her eyes. even now she was perfect. my throat began to tighten again, but as i said, i knew wat i had to do. since i had to accept that it was not within my power to cure her, what i wanted to do was give her something that shed wanted. it was wat my heart had been telling me to do all along. jamie, i understood then, had already given me the answer id been searching for, the answer my heart needed to find. shed told me outside mr. jenkins office, the night wed asked him about doing the play. i smiled softly, and she returned my affection with a slight squeeze of my hand, as if trusting me in wat i was about to do. encouraged, i leaned closer and took a deep breath. when i exhaled, these were the words that flowed with my breath. 'will you marry me?"
— Nicholas Sparks (A Walk to Remember)

The Bell Jar

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
— Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)

A Neruda Poem I like so much

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:

where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. "
— Pablo Neruda