Haruki Murakami Concept Quotes

You are a major dimwit. Is your brain made out of jello, you spineless twit? A leaf? What do you think I am, one of those magical raccoons? I'm a concept, get it? Con-cept! Concepts and raccoons aren't exactly the same, now are they? What a dumb thing to say ... ~ Haruki Murakami

No matter how clear things might become in the forest of story, there was never a clear-cut solution, as there was in math. The role of a story was, in the broadest terms, to transpose a problem into another form. Depending on the nature and the direction of the problem, a solution might be suggested in the narrative. Tengo would return to the real world with that solution in hand. It was like a piece of paper bearing the indecipherable text of a magic spell. It served no immediate practical purpose, but it contained a possibility. ~ Haruki Murakami

You know, Junpei, everything in the world has its reasons for doing what it does. ~ Haruki Murakami

The grounds of the place were dominated by several large, old willow trees that towered over the surrounding stone wall and swayed soundlessly in the wind like lost souls. ~ Haruki Murakami

No matter where i go, i still end up me. What's missing never changes. The scenery may change, but i'm still the same incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that i can never satisfy. I think that lack itself is as close as i'll come to defining myself. ~ Haruki Murakami

fleas are like a bad habit - awfully hard to get rid of once you get them ~ Haruki Murakami

The same goes for our dealings with sheep. Sheep raising in Japan has failed precisely because we've viewed sheep merely as a source of wool and meat. The daily-life level is missing from our thinking. We minimize the time factor to maximize the results. It's like that with everything. In other words, we don't have our feet on solid ground. ~ Haruki Murakami

I learned there were lots of realities in the world. ~ Haruki Murakami

And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. ~ Haruki Murakami

Even if I left this world, I doubt anyone would notice. I would shout out from the dark, but no one would hear me. Still, I have to keep soldiering on until I die, the only way I know how. Not a laudable sort of life, but the only life I know how to live. ~ Haruki Murakami

So they won't hear me," Fuka-Eri said quietly. ~ Haruki Murakami

Spending plenty of time on something can be the most sophisticated form of revenge. ~ Haruki Murakami

He considered using the time to think, but he couldn't think of anything to think about. ~ Haruki Murakami

My flesh may have to be consumed, but my mind belongs to me. I'm keeping it for myself. I will not hand it over to anyone. ~ Haruki Murakami

But you can't go back now? To that orderly, harmonious, intimate place?'
He thought about this, though there was no need to. 'That place doesn't exist anymore,' he said quietly. ~ Haruki Murakami

She rested her elbow on the bar and looked at me. "Tell me," she said. "What would you have wished for if you had been in my position?"
"On the night of my twentieth birthday, you mean?"
"Uh-huh."
I took some time to think about that, but I couldn't come up with a single wish.
"I can't think of anything," I confessed. "I'm too far away now from my twentieth birthday."
"You really can't think of anything?"
I nodded.
"Not one thing?"
"Not one thing."
She looked into my eyes again - straight in - and said, "That's because you've already made your wish. ~ Haruki Murakami

There has to be pain. That's the rule ~ Haruki Murakami

I'm not very good at giving anyone a clear no. ~ Haruki Murakami

The cause of it all was a slight oversight, one small operation out of order. Sure, it was her fault, her responsibility, if it came to that, but from where I stood it seemed like a common enough mishap. A momentary lapse and - glitch! Could have happened to anyone. But not to her. A tiny crack in her head widened into a fissure, eventually becoming a gaping chasm. She wouldn't, she couldn't take another step. At a total loss for words, she froze in place. She was a sorry sight, a ship sinking slowly in the night sea. ~ Haruki Murakami

Time flows in a strange way on Sundays. ~ Haruki Murakami

A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake and shout, 'Hey,this is no time for sleeping! You can't forget me, there's still more to write!' Impelled by that voice, I would find myself writing a novel. In this sense, too, my short stories and novels connect inside me in a very natural, organic way. ~ Haruki Murakami

Wasn'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 Murakami

She and I were bound together at the border between life and death. It was like that for us from the start ~ Haruki Murakami

She curled up and pressed her cheek against his chest. Her ear was right above his heart. She was listening to his thoughts. "I need to know this," Aomame said. "That we're in the same world, seeing the same things. ~ Haruki Murakami

To him, writing was like breathing. ~ Haruki Murakami

And besides, thought Yoshida, If it was all right for God to test man, why was it wrong for man to test God? ~ Haruki Murakami

The body is not the only target of rape. Violence does not always take a visible form, and not all wounds gush blood. ~ Haruki Murakami

In Japan they prefer the realistic style. They like answers and conclusions, but my stories have none. I want to leave them wide open to every possibility. I think my readers understand that openness. ~ Haruki Murakami

The facts and techniques or whatever they teach you in class isn't going to be very
useful in the real world, that's for sure. ~ Haruki Murakami

From the moment of my birth, I lived with pain at the center of my life. My only purpose in life was to find a way to coexist with intense pain. ~ Haruki Murakami

From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value. ~ Haruki Murakami

I'm a writer. I don't support any war. That's my principle. ~ Haruki Murakami

I'm all through as a human being," she said. "All you're looking at is the lingering memory of what I used to be. The most important part of me, what used to be inside, died years ago, and I'm just functioning by rote memory. ~ Haruki Murakami

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart. [On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning ] ~ Haruki Murakami

I'm not asking for sympathy, but it would be nice if you could give me a bit more in the way of a response. Other than those cold interjections of yours - ohs and ums. How about a conjunction? A conjunction would be nice. A yet or a but. ~ Haruki Murakami

To what extent facts we recognize as such really are as they seem, and to what extent these are facts merely because we label them as such, is an impossible distinction to draw. Therefore, in order to pin down reality as reality, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created within our consciousness, and it is the maintenance of this chain which produces the sensation that we are actually here, that we ourselves exist. But something can happen to sever that chain and we are at a loss. What is real? Is reality on this side of the break in the chain? Or over there, on the other side? ~ Haruki Murakami

People like him are looking for just one thing, and that is to find, if only once in their lifetimes, a work that is unmistakably the real thing. They want to put it on a tray and serve it up to the world. ~ Haruki Murakami

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. How deep is it? Nobody knows. Going down to the first underground floor, people can write novels and music. However, I believe that such works cannot move people's hearts. ~ Haruki Murakami

Writing from memory like this, I often feel a pang of dread. What if I've forgotten the most important thing? What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all the the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning into mud? ~ Haruki Murakami