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Haruki Murakami Quotes - Page 39

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It might not be perfect, but the fundamental stance I adopted with regard to my home was to accept it, problems and all, because it was something I myself had chosen. If it had problems, these were almost certainly

It might not be perfect, but the fundamental stance I adopted with regard to my home was to accept it, problems and all, because it was something I myself had chosen. If it had problems, these were almost certainly problems that had originated within me.

Haruki Murakami
Home, Perfect, Fundamentals
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1997.

The others in the dorm thought I wanted to be a writer, because I was always alone with a book, but I had no such ambition. There was nothing I wanted to be.

Haruki Murakami
Book, Ambition, Dorms

A life without pain: it was the very thing I had dreamed of for years, but now that I had it, I couldn’t find a place for myself within it. A clear gap separated me from it, and this caused me great confusion. I felt as if I were not anchored to this world - this world that I had hated so passionately until then; this world that I had continued to revile for its unfairness and injustice; this world where at least I knew who I was. Now the world ceased to be the world, and I had ceased to be me.

Haruki Murakami
Pain, Years, Confusion
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle". Book by Haruki Murakami, books.google.ru. October 10, 2011.

I laughed. “You’re too young to be so … pessimistic,” I said, using the English word. “Pessi-what?” “Pessimistic. It means looking only at the dark side of things.” “Pessimistic … pessimistic …” She repeated the English to herself over and over, and then she looked up at me with a fierce glare. “I’m only sixteen,” she said, “and I don’t know much about the world, but I do know one thing for sure. If I’m pessimistic, then the adults in this world who are not pessimistic are a bunch of idiots.

Haruki Murakami
Mean, Dark, Adults

Like you're riding a train at night across some vast plain, and you catch a glimpse of a tiny light in a window of a farmhouse. In an instant it's sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes. But if you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you, just barely for a few moments.

Haruki Murakami
Eye, Night, Light
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jan 19, 2016

That's good. I was worried. Of course, I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. I'd hate to think they were obvious to anybody else. Especially at the swimming pool in the summer.

Haruki Murakami
Summer, Hate, Swimming

And when you come back to Japan next summer, let's have that date or whatever you want to call it. We can go to the zoo or the botanical garden or the aquarium, and then we'll have the most politically correct and scrumptious omelets we can find.

Haruki Murakami
Summer, Zoos, Garden

You’re really cute, Midori,” I corrected myself. “What do you mean really cute?” “So cute the mountains crumble and the oceans dry up.

Haruki Murakami
Cute, Ocean, Mean

Tell me how you could say such a thing, she said, staring down at the ground beneath her feet. You're not telling me anything I don't know already. 'Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up.' What's the point of saying that to me? If I relaxed my body now, I'd fall apart. I've always lived like this, and it's the only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd never find my way back. I'd go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. Why can't you see that? How can you talk about watching over me if you can't see that?

Haruki Murakami
Fall, Feet, Relax

But knowing what I don’t want to do doesn’t help me figure out what I do want to do. I could do just about anything if somebody made me. But I don’t have an image of the one thing I really want to do. That’s my problem now. I can’t find the image.

Haruki Murakami
Knowing, Want, Helping
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1997.

Has the dark shadow really disappeared? Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear? Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you.

Haruki Murakami
Clever, Dark, Breathing

In real life things don’t go so smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news.

Haruki Murakami
Real, Cutting, Doors
Haruki Murakami (2011). “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”, p.144, Random House

I'm not going to get involved in a debate with you. Just remember this: the gods give, and the gods take away. Even if you are not aware of having been granted what you posses, the gods remember what they gave you. They don't forget a thing. You should use the abilities you have been granted with the utmost care.

Haruki Murakami
Giving, Use, Care
Haruki Murakami (2011). “1Q84: Books 1 and 2”, p.468, Random House

The young man knows that he is irretrievably lost. This is no town of cats, he finally realizes. It is the place where he is meant to be lost. It is another world, which has been prepared especially for him. And never again, for all eternity, will the train stop at this station to take him back to the world he came from.

Haruki Murakami
Cat, Men, World
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Apr 30, 2015

I was in my house, alone in the living room, anxious about you, watching the flashes of lightning. And a flash of lightning lit up this truth for me, right in front of my eye. That night i lost you, I lost something inside me. Or perhaps several things. Something central to my existence, the very support for who I am as a person

Haruki Murakami
Eye, Night, Who I Am

What do I like about math? , When I've got figures in front of me, it relaxes me. Kind of like, everything fits where it belongs.

Haruki Murakami
Math, Relax, Kind
Haruki Murakami (2011). “1Q84: Books 1 and 2”, p.55, Random House

Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end.

Haruki Murakami
Butterfly, Sight, Punctuation Marks
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jun 18, 2015

I hate requests. They make me feel unhappy. It's like when I take a book out of the library. As soon as I start to read it, all I can think about is when I'll finish it.

Haruki Murakami
Hate, Book, Thinking

All imperfections are forced upon the imperfect, so the 'perfect' can live content and oblivious.

Haruki Murakami
Perfect, Imperfection, Imperfect

But I didn't walk a single step. I stopped a lot to stretch, but I never walked. I didn't come here to walk. I came to run. That's the reason-the only reason-I flew all the way to the northern tip of Japan. No matter how slow I might run, I wasn't about to walk. That was the rule.

Haruki Murakami
Running, Japan, Might

I'd made it back to the land of the living. No matter how boring or mediocre a world it might be, this was it.

Haruki Murakami
Land, World, Might
"A Wild Sheep Chase". Book by Haruki Murakami, 2002.

When I was fifteen, all I wanted was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anybody’s reach. A place beyond the flow of time.” - But there’s no place like that in this world. - Exactly. Which is why I’m living here, in this world where things are continually damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time flows past without a break.

Haruki Murakami
Heart, Past, Other Worlds
Haruki Murakami (2011). “Kafka On The Shore”, p.267, Random House

I used to think the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time. But it's not like that. It happens overnight.

Haruki Murakami
Thinking, Order, Years
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from May 05, 2014

Even if you managed to escape from one cage, weren't you just in another, larger one?

Haruki Murakami
Cages, Ifs

This uneasiness comes over me from time to time, and I feel as if I've somehow been pieced together from two different puzzles.

Haruki Murakami
Two, Together, Different

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