Authors:

Haruki Murakami Quotes - Page 36

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
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.

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.

Haruki Murakami
Wall, Screw Ups, Genius
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Apr 30, 2014

Listen. I may not be much, but I'm all I've got. Maybe you need a magnifying glass to find my face in my high school graduation photo. Maybe I haven't got any family or friends. Yes, yes, I know all that. But, strange as it might seem, I'm not entirely dissatisfied with life... I feel pretty much at home with what I am. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want any unicorns behind fences.

Haruki Murakami
Home, School, Glasses

But if you peeled away the ornamental egos that she had built, there was only an abyss of nothingness and the intense thirst that came with it.

Haruki Murakami
Ego, Intense, Abyss

It's the same with menus and men and just about anything else: we think we're choosing things for ourselves, but in fact we may not be choosing anything. It could be that everthing's being decided in advance and we pretend we're making choices. Free will may be an illusion. I often think that.

Haruki Murakami
Men, Thinking, Choices

Everybody burns out in this world; amateur, pro, it doesn't matter, they all burn out, they all get hurt, the OK guys and the not-OK guys both. That's why everybody takes out a little insurance. I've got some too, here at the bottom of the heap. That way, you manage to survive if you burn out. If you're all by yourself and don't belong anywhere, you go down once, and you're out. Finished.

Haruki Murakami
Hurt, Guy, World
Haruki Murakami (2011). “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, p.454, Random House

Things may look different to you than they did before. I've had that experience myself. But don't let appearances fool you. There's only one reality.

Haruki Murakami
Reality, Different, Looks
"1Q84: Books 1 and 2". Book by Haruki Murakami, 2011.

I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die,” she said. “I can’t think about it. I don’t even know how I’m going to live.

Haruki Murakami
Thinking, Said, Dies
Haruki Murakami (2011). “After The Quake”, p.37, Random House

Most people are not looking for provable truths. As you said, truth is often accompanied by intense pain, and almost no one is looking for painful truths. What people need is beautiful, comforting stories that make them feel as if their lives have some meaning. Which is where religion comes from.

Haruki Murakami
Beautiful, Pain, People

A certain kind of shittiness, a certain kind of stagnation, a certain kind of darkness, goes on propagating itself by its own power in its own self-contained cycle. And once it passes a certain point, no one can stop it-even if the person himself wants to stop it.

Haruki Murakami
Self, Darkness, Goes On

According to Chekhov," Tamaru said, rising from his chair, "once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired." "Meaning what?" "Meaning, don't bring unnecessary props into a story. If a pistol appears, it has to be fired at some point. Chekhov liked to write stories that did away with all useless ornamentation.

Haruki Murakami
Writing, Gun, Stories

Whoa!" he says with a smile. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepen. "Chicken salad a la George Orwell!

Haruki Murakami
Eye, Wrinkles, Salad
Haruki Murakami (2011). “After Dark”, p.10, Random House

It is a lonely life sometimes, like throwing a stone into the deep darkness. It might hit something, but you can’t see it. The only thing you can do is to guess, and to believe.

Haruki Murakami
Lonely, Believe, Darkness

Problem is, once I sit at my desk and put all these down on paper. I realize something vital is missing. It doesn't crystallize - no crystals, just pebbles. And I'm not transported anywhere.

Haruki Murakami
Missing, Paper, Pebbles

What’s most important is what you can’t see but can feel in your heart. To be able to grasp something of value, sometimes you have to perform seemingly inefficient acts. But even activities that appear fruitless don’t necessarily end up so. That’s the feeling I have, as someone who’s felt this, who’s experienced it.

Haruki Murakami
Heart, Feelings, Important
Haruki Murakami (2011). “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”, p.172, Random House

Now for a good twelve-hour sleep, I told myself. Twelve solid hours. Let birds sing, let people go to work. Somewhere out there, a volcano might blow, Israeli commandos might decimate a Palestinian village. I couldn't stop it. I was going to sleep.

Haruki Murakami
Sleep, Blow, Volcanoes
Haruki Murakami (1993). “Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel”, Vintage

I can never say what I want to say, it's been like this for a while now. I try to say something but all I get are wrong words - the wrong words or the exact opposite words from what I mean. I try to correct myself, and that only makes it worse. I lose track of what I was trying to say to begin with. It's like I'm split in two and playing tag with myself. One half is chasing this big, fat post. The other me has the right words, but this can't catch her.

Haruki Murakami
Mean, Opposites, Two

You couldn’t begin to imagine who I am, where I’m going, or what I’m about to do, All of you are trapped here. You can’t go anywhere, forward or back. But I’m not like you. I have work to do. I have a mission to accomplish. And so, with your permission, I shall move ahead.

Haruki Murakami
Moving, Who I Am, Imagine

She gave me this look – she might have been watching from a lifeboat as the ship went down. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Haruki Murakami
Looks, Might, Way

As long as an individual's alive, he will undergo experience in some form or other, and those experiences are stored up instant by instant. To stop experiencin' is to die.

Haruki Murakami
Long, Alive, Individual
Haruki Murakami (1993). “Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel”, Vintage

It's just a feeling I have. What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real. My enemy is, among other things, the me inside me.

Haruki Murakami
Real, Eye, Feelings
Haruki Murakami (2011). “After The Quake”, p.100, Random House

You have to make an effort to always look at the good side, always think about the good things. Then you've got nothing to be afraid of. If something bad comes up, you do more thinking at that point.

Haruki Murakami
Thinking, Effort, Looks
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from May 02, 2014

Some people can work their butts off and never get what they're aiming for while others can get it without any effort at all.

Haruki Murakami
People, Effort
Haruki Murakami (2011). “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”, p.42, Random House

No matter how long you stand there examining yourself naked before a mirror, you'll never see reflected what's inside.

Haruki Murakami
Mirrors, Long, Naked

My grandpa always said asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime.

Haruki Murakami
Grandpa, Asking, Moments

Like a Chinese box, the world of the novel contained smaller worlds, and inside those were yet smaller worlds. Together, these worlds made up a single universe, and the universe waited there in the book to be discovered by the reader.

Haruki Murakami
Book, Chinese, Together
Haruki Murakami (2011). “The Elephant Vanishes”, p.100, Random House

You May Also Like: