Home > Work > From the Fatherland, with Love

From the Fatherland, with Love QUOTES

From the Fatherland, with Love QUOTES

1 " People who thought it fun to keep tegu lizards in cases too small for them displayed a mentality exactly like that of his parents. “It’s so cute!” they cooed as they fed the thing or gave it water or moved its case into the sunlight or warmed it with lamps. Even under the best conditions, lizards and tortoises never lived as long in captivity as in the wild; these people were slowly but surely killing the pets they found so adorable. "

― Ryū Murakami , From the Fatherland, with Love

2 " Alcohol, it was said, liberated people. But nobody here wanted liberation, or would have known what to do with it. Alcohol was usually drunk in an intimate atmosphere, and an intimate atmosphere was one fraught with problems. You were compelled to conform, to respect the spreading sense of closeness in a group. If you didn’t, you were punished. If you sat by yourself thinking in a room full of the fug of intimacy, people asked you what was wrong or if you were bored, and from there it would escalate until you were being blamed as an energy-suck and a gloomy bastard. When drinking, if someone made even the dumbest joke, you had to laugh. "

― Ryū Murakami , From the Fatherland, with Love

3 " Good poets are those able to gaze into the darkness of their own hearts. A vivid or beautiful poem is not necessarily a good poem. Poetry that doesn’t stand side by side with the reader has no real power. "

― Ryū Murakami , From the Fatherland, with Love

4 " True decadence wasn’t anything carnal; it was about sacrificing the powerless minority for the sake of the majority. "

― Ryū Murakami , From the Fatherland, with Love

5 " Nations that are down on their luck and bitter about it are generally disliked and shunned by their neighbors, just as individual people in that position are. Those that are both impoverished and embittered tend to lose the ability to control themselves. "

― Ryū Murakami , From the Fatherland, with Love