Haruki Murakami Quotes

Most young people were getting jobs in big companies, becoming company men. I wanted to be individual.

I think people who share my dreams can enjoy reading my novels. And that's a wonderful thing. I said that myths are like a reservoir of stories, and if I can act as a similar kind of "reservoir," albeit a modest one, that would make me very happy.

A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do.

In certain areas of my life, I actively seek out solitude. Especially for someone in my line of work, solitude is, more or less, an inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person's heart and dissolve it. You could see it, too, as a kind of double-edged sword. It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside.

Open your eyes, train your ears, use your head. If a mind you have, then use it while you can.

But the silence spoke volumes.

What would tomorrow bring? I wondered. Both hands on the wheel, I closed my eyes. I didn’t feel like I was in my own body; my body was just a lonely, temporary container I happened to be borrowing. What would become of me tomorrow I did not know.

Nakata's empty inside... Do you know what it means to be completely empty? Being empty is like a vacant house. An unlocked, vacant house. Anybody can come in, anytime they want. That's what scares me the most

Mental acuity was never born from comfortable circumstances.

When I was little, I had this science book. There was a section on 'What would happen to the world if there was no friction?' Answer: 'Everything on earth would fly into space from the centrifugal force of revolution.' That was my mood.

You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have.

The silence grew deeper, so deep that if you listened carefully you might very well catch the sound of the earth revolving on its axis.

I'm not going to get involved in a debate with you. Just remember this: the gods give, and the gods take away. Even if you are not aware of having been granted what you posses, the gods remember what they gave you. They don't forget a thing. You should use the abilities you have been granted with the utmost care.

No mistake about it. Ice is cold; roses are red; I'm in love. And this love is about to carry me off somewhere. The current's too overpowering; I don't have any choice. It may very well be a special place, some place I've never seen before. Danger may be lurking there, something that may end up wounding me deeply, fatally. I might end up losing everything. But there's no turning back. I can only go with the flow. Even if it means I'll be burned up, gone forever.

Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That’s it. That’s my heart.

As I see it, you are living with something that you keep hidden deep inside. Something heavy. I felt it from the first time I met you. You have a strong gaze, as if you have made up your mind about something. To tell you the truth, I myself carry such things around inside. Heavy things. That is how I can see it in you.

For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesnt begin at all.

It's just like Yeats said. In dreams begin responsibilities. Flip this around and you could say that where there's no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise.

Stories lie deep in our souls. Stories lie so deep at the bottom of our hearts that they can bring people together on the deepest level. When I write a novel, I go into such depths.

Will you wait for me forever?

And her sleep was too long and deep for that:so deep that she left her normal reality behind.

Everybody thinks I'm this delicate little girl. But you can't tell a book by it's cover.' To which she added a momentary smile.

No matter how honestly you open up to someone, there are still things you cannot reveal.

Any explanation or logic that explains everything so easily has a hidden trap in it. I'm speaking from experience. Somebody once said if it's something a single book can explain, it's not worth having explained. What I mean is don't leap to any conclusions.

I guess I felt attached to my weakness. My pain and suffering too. Summer light, the smell of a breeze, the sound of cicadas - if I like these things, why should I apologize?

Whether it's good for anything or not, cool or totally uncool, in the final analysis what's most important is what you can't see but can feel in your heart.

Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it'd lose even its imperfection.

Is it possible to become friends with a butterfly?

You know, the usual story. Once upon a time I was playing my harp by a spring when a fairy appeared out of nowhere, handed me a Beretta Model 92, and told me to shoot the white rabbit over there for target practice.

A strange, terrific force unlike anything I've ever experienced is sprouting in my heart, taking root there, growing. Shut up behind my rib cage, my warm heart expands and contracts independent of my will--over and over.

When I first met you, I felt a kind of contradiction in you. You’re seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away for all you’re worth.

I have read all my novels that were translated into English. Reading my novels is enjoyable because I forget almost all the content in them.

Everybody feels safe belonging not to the excluded minority but to the excluding majority. You think, Oh, I’m glad that’s not me. It’s basically the same in all periods in all societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.

She's kind of funny looking. Her face is out of balance--broad forehead, button nose, freckled cheeks, and pointy ears. A slammed-together, rough sort of face you can't ignore. Still, the whole package isn't so bad. For all I know maybe she's not so wild about her own looks, but she seems comfortable with who she is, and that's the important thing.

I'm still not sure I made the right choice when I told my wife about the bakery attack.But then,it might not have been a question of right or wrong. Which is to say that wrong choices can produce right results, and vice versa. I myself have adopted the position that,in fact, we never choose anything at all. Things happen. Or not.

Results aside, the ability to have complete faith in another human being is one of the finest qualities a person can possess.

Such wounds to the heart will probably never heal. But we cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever.

In most cases learning something essential in life requires physical pain.

Your work should be an act of love, not a marriage of convenience.

Where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, I sat and looked toward the building where Naoko lived. It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night.

For some reason all the middle-aged women he knew were very efficient.

It is very simple, actually. It is because you and Tengo were so powerfully drawn to each other.

For a while" is a phrase whose length can't be measured.At least by the person who's waiting.

I'm going to take you out of here ... I'm going to take you home, to the world where you belong, where cats with bent tails live, and there are little backyards, and alarm clocks ring in the morning.

Our hearts are not stones. A stone may disintegrate in time and lose its outward form. But hearts never disintegrate. They have no outward form, and whether good or evil, we can always communicate them to one another.

A man is like a two-story house. The first floor is equipped with an entrance and a living room. On the second floor is every family member's room. They enjoy listening to music and reading books. On the first underground floor is the ruin of people's memories. The room filled with darkness is the second underground floor.

As long as I was alive, I was something. That was just how it was. But somewhere along the way it all changed. Living turned me into nothing.

Painful is the stress when one cannot reproduce or convey vividly to others, however hard he tries, what he's experienced so intensely.