“I pulled up my feet, bent my knees, and rested my chin on my hand. Then I closed my eyes. . . . The darkness behind my closed eyelids was like the cloud-covered sky, but the gray was somewhat deeper. Every few minutes, someone would come and paint over the gray with a different-textured gray—one with a touch of gold or green or red. I was impressed with the variety of grays that existed. Human beings were so strange. All you had to do was sit still for ten minutes, and you could see this amazing variety of grays.”

—Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, translated by Jay Rubin, 1997.