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Haruki Murakami Quotes

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Famous Haruki Murakami Quotes

“Hey there, Kizuki, I thought. Unlike you, I've chosen to live- and to live the best i know how. Sure it was hard for you. What the hell, it's hard for me. Really hard. And all because you killed yourself and left Naoko behind. But that's something I will never do. I will never, ever, turn my back on her. First of all, because I love her, and because I'm stronger than she is. And i'm just going to keep on getting stronger. I'm going to mature. I'm going to be an adult. Because that's what I have to do. I always used to think I'd like to stay 17 or 18 if I could. But not anymore. I'm not a teenager anymore. I've got a sense of responsibility now. I'm not the same person I was when we used to hang out together. I'm 20 now. And I have to pay the price to go on living.”

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Book:Norwegian Wood
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“Forget genius. It doesn't do much for innocent bystanders. Especially if everyone's going to want a piece of the action. That's why this whole mess happened in the first place. Genius or fool, you don't live in the world alone. You can hide underground or you can build a wall around yourself, but somebody's going to come along and screw up the works.”

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Book:Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
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“Lo que le impactó fue que la cara de Sara irradiase felicidad. Mientras hablaba con aquel hombre, todo su rostro sonreía. Con Tsukuru nunca había mostrado una alegría tan franca. Ni una sola vez. Cuando estaba con Tsukuru parecía controlar automáticamente, en cualquier situación, todos y cada uno de sus gestos. Eso fue lo que realmente le desgarró y angustió.”

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Book:Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
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“Have you heard of the illness hysteria siberiana? Try to imagine this: You're a farmer, living all alone on the Siberian tundra. Day after day you plow your fields. As far as the eye can see, nothing. To the north, the horizon, to the east, the horizon, to the south, to the west, more of the same. Every morning, when the sun rises in the east, you go out to work in your fields. When it's directly overhead, you take a break for lunch. When it sinks in the west, you go home to sleep. And then one day, something inside you dies. Day after day you watch the sun rise in the east, pass across the sky, then sink in the west, and something breaks inside you and dies. You toss your plow aside and, your head completely empty of thought, begin walking toward the west. Heading toward a land that lies west of the sun. Like someone, possessed, you walk on, day after day, not eating or drinking, until you collapse on the ground and die. That's hysteria siberiana.”

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Book:South of the Border, West of the Sun
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“Kumiko and I felt something for each other from the start. It was not one of those strong, impulsive feelings that can hit two people like an electric shock when they first meet, but something quieter and gentler, like two tiny lights travelling in tandem through a vast darkness and drawing imperceptibly closer to each other as they go. As our meetings grew more frequent, I felt not so much that I had met someone new as that I had chanced upon a dear old friend.”

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Book:The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
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“We were happy with our married life and had no problems to speak of. And yet there were times when I couldn't help sensing an area inside Kumiko to which I had no access. In the middle of the most ordinary-of the most excited - conversation, and without the slightest warning, she might sink into silence. It would happen all of a sudden, for no reason at all (or at least no reason I could discern). It was like walking along the road and all of a sudden falling into a pit. Her silences never lasted very long, but afterwards, until a fair amount of time had gone by, it was as if she were not really there.”

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Book:The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
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“I can't forgive myself. You tell me there's nothing I can do about a natural change in feelings, but my relationship with Naoko was not that simple. If you stop and think about it, she and I were bound together at the border between life and death. It was like that for us from the start." "If you feel some kind of pain with regard to Naoko's death, I would advise you to keep on feeling that pain for the rest of your life. And if there's something you can learn from it, you should do that, too. But quite aside from that, you should be happy with Midori. Your pain has nothing to do with your relationship with her. If you hurt her any more than you already have, the wound could be too deep to fix. So, hard as it may be, you have to be strong. You have to grow up more, be more of an adult. I left the sanatorium and came all the way up here to Tokyo to tell you that---all the way on that coffin of a train.”

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Book:Norwegian Wood
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“It may well be that we can never fully adapt to our own deformities. Unable to find a place inside ourselves for the very real pain and suffering that these deformities cause, we come here to get away from such things. As long as we are here, we can get by without hurting others or being hurt by them because we know that we are "deformed". That's what distinguishes us from the outside world: most people go about their lives unconscious of their deformities, while in this little world of ours the deformities themselves are a precondition. Just as Indians wear feathers on their heads to show what tribe they belong to, we wear our deformities in the open. And we live quietly so as not to hurt one another.”

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Book:Norwegian Wood
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“People die all the time. Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely. It's too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands after the person dies. Personally, I don't buy it." Yuki leaned against the car door. "But that's real hard, isn't it?" she said. "Real hard," I said. "But it's worth trying for.”

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Book:Dance Dance Dance
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“Oshima's silent for a time as he gazes at the forest, eyes narrowed. Birds are flitting from one branch to the next. His hands are clasped behind his head. "I know how you feel," he finally says. "But this is something you have to work out on your own. Nobody can help you. That's what love's all about, Kafka. You're the one having those wonderful feelings, but you have to go it alone as you wander through the dark. Your mind and body have to bear it all. All by yourself.”

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Book:Kafka on the Shore
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“This man was a high-powered operator, but also prone to overwork. He earned a high salary, but he couldn’t use it now that he was dead. He wore Armani suits and drove a Jaguar, but finally he was just another ant, working and working until he died without meaning. The very fact that he existed in this world would eventually be forgotten. “Such a shame, he was so young,” people might say. Or they might not.”

StressCorporateMeaning Of LifeOverworkKaroshi
Book:1Q84
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“Jedan trkač je govorio o magijskoj izreci kojoj ga je njegov stariji brat, također trkač, naučio i koja ga prožima još otkad se počeo baviti trčanjem. Evo te mantre: Bol je neminovna. Patnja je stvar izbora. Recimo da trčite i počnete razmišljati: "Ovo me baš boli, ne mogu dulje izdržati." Ta vrsta boli neizbježan je dio stvarnosti, ali o tome može li dulje izdržati ili ne, odluku donosi jedino trkač.”

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Book:What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
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“In the deepening spring of May, I had no choice but to recognize the trembling of my heart. It usually happened as the sun was going down. In the pale evening gloom, when the soft fragrance of magnolias hung in the air, my heart would swell without warning, and tremble, and lurch with a stab of pain. I would try clamping my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, and wait for it to pass. And it would pass –but slowly, taking its own time, and leaving a dull ache behind.”

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Book:Norwegian Wood
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“Tengo's lectures took on uncommon warmth, and the students found themselves swept up in his eloquence. He taught them how to practically and effectively solve mathematical problems while simultaneously presenting a spectacular display of the romance concealed in the questions it posed. Tengo saw admiration in the eyes of several of his female students, and he realized that he was seducing these seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds through mathematics. His eloquence was a kind of intellectual foreplay. Mathematical functions stroked their backs; theorems sent warm breath into their ears.”

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Book:1Q84
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