"Once, long ago, when I was still young, when the memories were far more vivid than they are now, I often tried to write about her. But I couldn't produce a line. I knew that if that first line would come, the rest would pour itself onto the page, but I could never make it happen.

Everything was too sharp and clear, so that I could never tell where to start - the way a map that shows too much can sometimes be useless. Now, though, I realize that all I can place in the imperfect vessel of writing are imperfect memories and imperfect thoughts. The more the memories of Naoko inside me fade, the more deeply I am able to understand her.

I know, too, why she asked me not to forget her. Naoko herself knew, of course. She knew that my memories of her would fade.

Which is precisely why she begged me never to forget her, to remember that she had existed."

- Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami