On free will, and irony (my favorite thing):
"For the sake of argument, let's say all your choices and all your effort are destined to be a waste. You're still very much yourself and nobody else. And you're forging ahead, as yourself, so relax."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because there's irony involved...What you're experiencing now is the motif of many Greek tragedies. Man doesn't choose fate. Fate chooses man. That's the basic world view of the Greek drama. And the sense of tragedy -comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Oedipus Rex being a great example. Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of laziness or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results. Irony deepens a person, helps them to mature. It's the entrance to salvation on a higher plane, to a place where you can find a more universal kind of hope. That's why people enjoy reading Greek tragedies...everything in life is a metaphor...we accept irony through metaphor."
On why humans are beautiful:
"Playing Shubert's piano sonatas well is one of the hardest things in the world. Most of all this Sonata in D major...there's never one where you can say, Yes! He's got it! Do you know why?...Because the sonata itself is imperfect."
"If the composition's imperfect, why would so many pianists try to master it?"
"...works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason...there's something in it that draws you in...you discover something about that work that tugs at your heart -or maybe we should say that the work discovers you...listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of -that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect."
~from Kafka on the Shore
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