“Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again.”
More from Haruki Murakami
“You wait for the right moment, and it will come to you. You need confidence that you will…”
“No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself.”
“Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip…”
“If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.”