Every one of us
is losing something precious to us," he says after the phone stops
ringing. "Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never
get back again. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our
heads—at least that's where I imagine it—there's a little room where we store
those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the
workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We
have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the
water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own
private library.
~ Haruki
Murakami, Kafka on the Shore, 2002
