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Haruki Murakami Quotes - Page 11

All Quotes Acceptance Age Appearance Attitude Autumn Balance Bones Change Chaos Character Choices Concentration Confusion Consciousness Curiosity Darkness Desire Destiny Disappointment Doubt Dying Earth Effort Emptiness End Of The World Evil Falling In Love Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Film Focus Fun Giving Giving Up Growing Up Hate Heart Home House Hurt Imagination Imperfection Inspirational Inspiring Joy Judging Justice Kindness Labyrinth Language Leaving Life Listening Literature Live Life Logic Loneliness Loss Love Luck Lying Marathon Math Memories Metaphor Moon Morning Mountain Nothingness Opportunity Pain Passion Past Perfection Personality Philosophy Purpose Quality Quitting Rain Reading Reality Regret Responsibility Running Sadness School Silence Sleep Solitude Sorrow Soul Spring Struggle Style Summer Sunday Talent Time Today Training Understanding Values Waiting Wall War Water Winter Work Out Worry Writing
Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you.

Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you.

Haruki Murakami
Lonely, Sex, Real
Haruki Murakami (2011). “A Wild Sheep Chase”, p.11, Random House

Life doesn't require ideals. It requires standards of action.

Haruki Murakami
Action, Standards, Norwegian Wood
Haruki Murakami (2011). “Norwegian Wood”, p.71, Random House

How can the mind be so imperfect?" she says with a smile. I look at my hands. Bathed in the moonlight, they seem like statues, proportioned to no purpose. "It may well be imperfect," I say, "but it leaves traces. And we can follow those traces, like footsteps in the snow." "Where do the lead?" "To oneself," I answer. "That's where the mind is. Without the mind, nothing leads anywhere." I look up. The winter moon is brilliant, over the Town, above the Wall. "Not one thing is your fault," I comfort her.

Haruki Murakami
Wall, Winter, Moon

Gazing at the rain, I consider what it means to belong, to become part of something. To have someone cry for me.

Haruki Murakami
Rain, Mean, Gazing
Haruki Murakami (2011). “Dance Dance Dance”, p.5, Random House

It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.

Haruki Murakami
Happiness, Stories, Said
"Kafka on the Shore". Book by Haruki Murakami, September 12, 2002.

The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.

Haruki Murakami
Coffee, Night, Smell
"Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage". Book by Haruki Murakami, www.theguardian.com. 2013.

Become like a sheet of blotting paper and soak it all in. Later on you can figure out what to keep and what to unload.

Haruki Murakami
Paper, Figures, Sheets
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from May 29, 2011

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.

Haruki Murakami
Axes, Silence, Sound
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jun 30, 2015

He was silent for thirty seconds, maybe a minute. I uncrossed my legs under the table and wondered if this was the right moment to leave. It was as if my whole life revolved around trying to judge the right point in a conversation to say goodbye.

Haruki Murakami
Goodbye, Judging, Trying
"Hunting Knife" by Haruki Murakami, www.newyorker.com. November 17, 2003.

That's why I like listening to Schubert while I'm driving. Like I said, it's because all his performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of - that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally I find that encouraging.

Haruki Murakami
Eye, Perfect, Listening
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jan 07, 2015

A girl doesn't always want to go out, you know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Sometimes she feels like being nasty--like, if the guy's gonna wait, let him really wait.

Haruki Murakami
Girl, Wind, Guy
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1994.

She was truly a beautiful girl. I could feel a small polished stone sinking through the darkest waters of my heart. All those deep convoluted channels and passageways, and yet she managed to toss her pebble right down to the bottom of it all.

Haruki Murakami
Beautiful, Girl, Heart

But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning.

Haruki Murakami
Morning, Loneliness, Book
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jan 01, 2017

I'd be smiling and chatting away, and my mind would be floating around somewhere else, like a balloon with a broken string.

Haruki Murakami
Somewhere Else, Broken, Mind
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Feb 23, 2015

In everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.

Haruki Murakami
Life Lesson, Struggle, Return
Haruki Murakami (2011). “Kafka On The Shore”, p.173, Random House

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.

Haruki Murakami
Book, Science, Space

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

Haruki Murakami
Moments, Far Away

All right, then, I thought: here I am in the bottom of a well.

Haruki Murakami
Here I Am, Wells, Bottom

Don’t you see? You and he might never cross paths again. Of course, a chance meeting could occur, and I hope it happens. I really do, for your sake. But realistically speaking, you have to see there’s a huge possibility you’ll never be able to meet him again. And even if you do meet, he might already be married to somebody else. He might have two kids. Isn’t that so? And in that case, you may have to live the rest of your life alone, never being joined with the one person you love in all the world. Don’t you find that scary?

Haruki Murakami
Kids, Two, Scary

I contented myself with whiskey, for medicinal purposes. It helped numb my various aches and pains. Not that the alcohol actually reduced the pain; it just gave the pain a life of its own, apart from mine.

Haruki Murakami
Pain, Alcohol, Purpose

I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.

Haruki Murakami
Emptiness, Fingertips, Said
Haruki Murakami (2011). “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”, p.161, Random House

We were young, and we had no need for prophecies. Just living was itself an act of prophecy.

Haruki Murakami
Needs, Young, Prophecy

I can be hurt, you know. I can get as exhausted as anybody else. I can feel so bad I want to cry, too.

Haruki Murakami
Hurt, Want, Exhausted
Haruki Murakami (2011). “Norwegian Wood”, p.245, Random House

It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.

Haruki Murakami
Writing, Together, Crumbling

I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.

Haruki Murakami
Love, Breakup, Hurt

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