murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

She picked up the basketball again, twirled it in her hands and
bounced it on the ground.
"The most important thing is not to let yourself get impatient," Reiko
said. "This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don't get
impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can't do anything, don't
get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread
before it's ready to come undone. You have to realize it's going to be a
long process and that you'll work on things slowly, one at a time. Do
you think you can do that?"
"I can try," I said.
"It may take a very long time, you know, and even then she may not
recover completely. Have you thought about that?" I nodded.
"Waiting is hard," she said, bouncing the ball. "Especially for
someone your age. You just sit and wait for her to get better. Without
deadlines or guarantees. Do you think you can do that? Do you love
Naoko that much?"
"I'm not sure," I said honestly. "Like Naoko, I'm not really sure what it
means to love another person. Though she meant it a little differently.
I do want to try my best, though. I have to, or else I won't know where
to go. Like you said before, Naoko and I have to save each other. It's
the only way for either of us to be saved."
"And are you going to go on sleeping with girls you pick up?"
"I don't know what to do about that either," I said. "What do you
think? Should I just keep waiting and masturbating? I'm not in
complete control there, either."
Reiko set the ball on the ground and patted my knee. "Look," she said,
"I'm not telling you to stop sleeping with girls. If you're OK with that,
then it's OK. It's your life after all, it's something you have to decide.
All I'm saying is you shouldn't use yourself up in some unnatural
form. Do you see what I'm getting at? It would be such a waste. The
years 19 and 20 are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and
if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that
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