No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That's all.
Haruki MurakamiI spent thirty-three years in another man's shadow. I went everywhere he went, I helped him with everything he did. I was in a sense a part of him. When you live like that for a long time, you gradually lose track of what it is you yourself really want out of life
Haruki MurakamiNo matter what the situation may be, I still take pleasure in witnessing the joy of others.
Haruki MurakamiHaving an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents.
Haruki MurakamiSometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts.
Haruki MurakamiIt's true though: time moves in its own special way in the middle of the night," the bartender says, loudly striking a book match and lighting a cigarette. "You can't fight it.
Haruki MurakamiI'm not afraid to die. What I'm afraid of is having reality get the better of me, of having reality leave me behind.
Haruki MurakamiIt was spring break, so the theater was always packed with high schools students. It was an animal house. I wanted to burn the place down.
Haruki MurakamiWhat do we talk about? Just ordinary things. What happened today, or books we've read, or tomorrow's weather, you know. Don't tell me you're wondering if people jump to their feet and shout stuff like 'It'll rain tomorrow if a polar bear eats the stars tonight!
Haruki MurakamiPeople lose fifty million skin cells every day. The cells get scraped off and turn into invisible dust, and disappear into the air. Maybe we are nothing but skin cells as far as the world is concerned.
Haruki MurakamiThings outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you're stepping into the labyrinth inside.
Haruki MurakamiSometimes I feel like a caretaker of a museum -- a huge, empty museum where no one ever comes, and I'm watching over it for no one but myself.
Haruki MurakamiThere's an essential order you have to follow in everything. It's a way of showing respect, following everything in the correct order.
Haruki MurakamiI've been running a full marathon every year for more than 20 years, and my record is getting worse. Getting older, getting worse. It's natural.
Haruki MurakamiMy arm was not what she needed, but the arm of someone else. My warmth was not what she needed, but the warmth of someone else.
Haruki MurakamiBeyond the window, some kind of small, black thing shot across the sky. A bird, possibly. Or it might have been someone's soul being blown to the far side of the world.
Haruki MurakamiSo this was how secrets got started, I thought to myself. People constructed them little by little. I had not consciously intended to keep May Kasahara a secret from Kumiko. My relationship with her was not that big a deal: whether I mentioned it or not was of no consequence. Once it had flown down a certain delicate channel, however, it had become cloaked in the opacity of secretiveness, whatever my original intention had have been.
Haruki MurakamiFate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step.
Haruki MurakamiHe appeared before me and departed. We were not able to speak to or touch each other. But in that short interval, he transformed many things inside me. He literally stirred my mind and body the way a spoon stirs a cup of cocoa, down to the depths of my internal organs and my womb.
Haruki MurakamiCrying is personal. On the other hand, laughing is more general . Laughing makes our hearts wider.
Haruki MurakamiIf you listen to the radio for a whole hour there's maybe one decent song. The rest is mass-produced garbage
Haruki MurakamiI'm tired of living unable to love anyone. I don't have a single friend - not one. And, worst of all, I can't even love myself. Why is that? Why can't I love myself? It's because I can't love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself.
Haruki MurakamiWho can really distinguish between the sea and what's reflected in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness?
Haruki MurakamiPossibilities are like cancer. The more I think about them, the more they multiply, and there's no way to stop them. I'm out of control.
Haruki MurakamiIt's a dark, cool, quiet place. A basement in your soul. And that place can sometimes be dangerous to the human mind. I can open the door and enter that darkness, but I have to be very careful. I can find my story there. Then I bring that thing to the surface, into the real world.
Haruki MurakamiWasn't it better if they kept this desire to see each other hidden within them, and never actually got together? That way, there would always be hope in their hearts. That hope would be a small, yet vital flame that warmed them to their core-- a tiny flame to cup one's hands around and protect from the wind, a flame that the violent winds of reality might easily extinguish.
Haruki MurakamiTime really is one big continuous cloth, no? We habitually cut out pieces of time to fit us, so we tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on.
Haruki MurakamiBut I didn't understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.
Haruki MurakamiEverybody burns out in this world; amateur, pro, it doesn't matter, they all burn out, they all get hurt, the OK guys and the not-OK guys both. That's why everybody takes out a little insurance. I've got some too, here at the bottom of the heap. That way, you manage to survive if you burn out. If you're all by yourself and don't belong anywhere, you go down once, and you're out. Finished.
Haruki MurakamiIs action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action?
Haruki MurakamiMe, I've seen 45 years and I've only figured out one thing. That's this: if a person would just make the effort, there's something to be learned from everything. From even the most ordinary, commonplace things, there's always something you can learn. I read somewhere that they said there's even different philosophies in razors. Fact is, if it weren't for that, nobody'd survive.
Haruki MurakamiThe problem was, I think, that the places I fit in were always falling behind the rimes.
Haruki MurakamiListen up—there’s no war that will end all wars,’ Crow tells me. ‘War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that.
Haruki MurakamiMaybe it's just hiding somewhere. Or gone on a trip to come home. But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows — maybe even tomorrow.
Haruki MurakamiMy biggest faults is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. It's like I was raising chickens inside me. The chickens lay eggs and the eggs hatch into other chickens, which then lay eggs. Is this any way to live a life? What with all these faults I've got going, I have to wonder. Sure, I get by. But in the end, that's not the question, is it?
Haruki Murakami