Haruki Murakami Love Quotes

Even now, whenever I think of her, I envision a quiet Sunday morning. A gentle, clear day, just getting under way. No homework to do, just a Sunday when you could do what you wanted. She always gave me this kick-back-and-relax, Sunday-morning kind of feeling. ~ Haruki Murakami

Expression and communication are essential; without these, civilization ends. ~ Haruki Murakami

I was at the bottom of the sea, the pressure dense, crushing, inexorable. Dead silence strained against my eardrums. The darkness was without reprieve. No mental adjustment could make it less absolute. It was impenetrable - black painted over black painted over black. ~ Haruki Murakami

Have you ever seen the shadows of tears, Mr Wind-up Bird? They're nothing like ordinary shadows. Nothing at all. They come here from some other, distant world, especially for our hearts. ~ Haruki Murakami

In dreams begins responsiblities. ~ Haruki Murakami

A simple change of scenery can bring about powerful shifts in the flow of time and emotions ~ Haruki Murakami

Eyes mark the shape of the city. ~ Haruki Murakami

No, it's not sick. I wish I could be the one to hold you, though, I said.
So hold me. Now. Right here. ~ Haruki Murakami

One thing became crystal clear to me when I couldn't see you anymore. I realized that the only way I had been able to survive until then was having you in my life. When I lost you, the pain and loneliness really got to me. ~ Haruki Murakami

Cats can get by without names. We go by smell, shape, things of this nature. As long as we know these things, there're no worries for us. ~ Haruki Murakami

Consistency and an established worldview were excess baggage in the intellectual mobile warfare that flared up in the mass media's tiny time segments, and it was his great advantage to be free of such things. ~ Haruki Murakami

But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they're doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don't want to. Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas – none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. [...]
Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe. Of course it's important to know what's right and what's wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive. ~ Haruki Murakami

I've always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I'm wrong, but I won't change. ~ Haruki Murakami

I have come to think that life is a far more limited thing than those in the midst of its maelstorm realize. That light shines into the act of life for only the briefest moment-perhaps only a matter of seconds. Once it is gone and failed to grasp its offered revelation, there is no second chance. One may have to live the rest of one's life in hopeless depth of loneliness and remorse. In that twilight world, one can no longer look forward to anything. All that such a person holds in his hands is the withered corpse of what should have been. ~ Haruki Murakami

I think he wants to have a different personality to be somebody different from who he's been up till now ~ Haruki Murakami

Mental acuity was never born from comfortable circumstances. ~ Haruki Murakami

When a vacuum forms, something has to come along to fill it ~ Haruki Murakami

Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don't want to do? ~ Haruki Murakami

A person's life may be a lonely thing by nature, but it is not isolated. To that life other lives are linked. ~ Haruki Murakami

If, as the dowager had said, we are nothing but gene carriers, why do so many of us have to lead such strangely shaped lives? Wouldn't our genetic purpose - to transmit DNA - be served just as well if we lived simple lives, not bothering our heads with a lot of extraneous thoughts, devoted entirely to preserving life and procreating? Did it benefit the genes in any way for us to lead such intricately warped, even bizarre, lives? ~ Haruki Murakami

The music gave her an odd, wrenching kind of feeling. There was no pain or unpleasantness involved, just a sensation that all the elements of her body were being physically wrung out. Aomame had no idea what was going on. Could Sinfonietta actually be giving me this weird feeling? ~ Haruki Murakami

Even if no one would miss me, even if I left no blank space in anyone's life, even if no one noticed, I couldn't leave willingly. ~ 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

Tell her the Town told you to come read old dreams. ~ Haruki Murakami

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

Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade. ~ Haruki Murakami

Miu let age naturally rise to the surface, accepted it for what it was, and made her peace with it. ~ Haruki Murakami

There is a point is everybody's life where they need a major transformation. And when that time comes you have to grab it by the tail. Grab it hard, and never let go. There are some people who are able to, and others who can't. ~ Haruki Murakami

She would go to bed at ten, read a few pages in her book, and fall asleep. Aomame had never had trouble falling asleep. As she read, she would get sleepy. ~ Haruki Murakami

An empty shell. Those were the first words that sprang to mind ... Something incredibly important - .. - had disappeared from Miu for good. Leaving behind not life, but its absence ~ Haruki Murakami

Revolution or not, the working class will keep on scraping a living in the same old shitholes. And what is a revolution? It sure as hell isn't just changing the name on city hall. ~ Haruki Murakami

Human beings are ultimately nothing but carriers-passageways- for genes. They ride us into the ground like racehorses from generation to generation. Genes don't think about what constitutes good or evil. They don't care whether we are happy or unhappy. We're just means to an end for them. The only thing they think about is what is most efficient for them. ~ Haruki Murakami

Without a true self, a person can not go on living. It is like the ground we stand on. Without the ground, we can build nothing. ~ Haruki Murakami

Even if we could turn back, we'd probably never end up where we started. ~ Haruki Murakami

Phones ringing in the middle
of the night always sound harsh and grating, like some savage metal tool out to
destroy the world. I felt it was my duty, as a member of the human race, to put a
stop to it ~ Haruki Murakami

Whether you take a doughnut hole as blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit. Sitting ~ Haruki Murakami

The cook hates the waiter, and they both hate the customer ~ Haruki Murakami

In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment. ~ Haruki Murakami

Speaking frankly and speaking the truth are two different things entirely. Honesty is to truth as prow is to stern. Honesty appears first and truth appears last. ~ Haruki Murakami

Better to have somebody who isn't boring than somebody who is. ~ Haruki Murakami

I haven't danced like this in ages. I don't know, when you move your body, it's kind of like your spirit gets liberated."
"Your spirit is always liberated, I'd say. ~ Haruki Murakami

Her partially open lips now opened wide, and her soft, fragrant tongue entered his mouth, where it began a relentless search for unformed words, for a secret code engraved there. Tengo's own tongue responded unconsciously to this movement and soon their tongues were like two young snakes in a spring meadow, newly wakened from their hibernation and hungrily intertwining, each led on by the other's scent. ~ Haruki Murakami

As with most people who are well raised, well educated, and financially secure, Dr. Tokai only thought of himself. ~ Haruki Murakami

No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us - that's snatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence.
I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do. To dream, to live in the world of dreams - just as Sumire said. But it doesn't last forever. Wakefulness always comes to take me back. ~ Haruki Murakami