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Haruki Murakami Quotes - Page 40

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People have their own reasons for dying. It might look simple, but it never is. It's just like a rock. What's above ground is only a small part of it. But if you start pulling, it keeps coming and coming. The human mind

People have their own reasons for dying. It might look simple, but it never is. It's just like a rock. What's above ground is only a small part of it. But if you start pulling, it keeps coming and coming. The human mind dwells deep in darkness. Only the person himself knows the real reason, and maybe not even then.

Haruki Murakami
Real, Simple, Rocks

Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won't keep reading your work.

Haruki Murakami
Reading, People, Style
"Jazz Messenger" by Haruki Murakami, www.nytimes.com. July 8, 2007.

So this was how secrets got started, I thought to myself. People constructed them little by little. I had not consciously intended to keep May Kasahara a secret from Kumiko. My relationship with her was not that big a deal: whether I mentioned it or not was of no consequence. Once it had flown down a certain delicate channel, however, it had become cloaked in the opacity of secretiveness, whatever my original intention had have been.

Haruki Murakami
People, Secret, May
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle". Book by Haruki Murakami, October 10, 2011.

Oshima's silent for a time as he gazes at the forest, eyes narrowed. Birds are flitting from one branch to the next. His hands are clasped behind his head. "I know how you feel," he finally says. "But this is something you have to work out on your own. Nobody can help you. That's what love's all about, Kafka. You're the one having those wonderful feelings, but you have to go it alone as you wander through the dark. Your mind and body have to bear it all. All by yourself.

Haruki Murakami
Eye, Dark, Hands

But didn't you say you were satisfied with your life?" "Word games," I dismissed. "Every army needs a flag.

Haruki Murakami
Army, Games, Needs
Haruki Murakami (1993). “Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel”, Vintage

Me, I've seen 45 years and I've only figured out one thing. That's this: if a person would just make the effort, there's something to be learned from everything. From even the most ordinary, commonplace things, there's always something you can learn. I read somewhere that they said there's even different philosophies in razors. Fact is, if it weren't for that, nobody'd survive.

Haruki Murakami
Philosophy, Years, Effort
"Pinball, 1973". Book by Haruki Murakami, September 1985.

Huge organizations and me don't get along. They're too inflexible, waste too much time, and have too many stupid people.

Haruki Murakami
Stupid, Organization, People

If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden. The two processes complement each other, creating a complete landscape that I treasure. The green foliage of the trees casts a pleasant shade over the earth, and the wind rustles the leaves, which are sometimes dyed a brilliant gold. Meanwhile, in the garden, buds appear on the flowers, and colorful petals attract bees and butterflies, reminding us of the subtle transition from one season to the next.

Haruki Murakami
Flower, Butterfly, Writing

Her voice was like a line from an old black-and-white Jean-Luc Godard movie, filtering in just beyond the frame of my consciousness.

Haruki Murakami
Black And White, Voice, Lines

One of these days they'll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end.

Haruki Murakami
War, Race, Work Out
"A Wild Sheep Chase". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1982.

I do feel that I’ve managed to make something I could maybe call my world…over time…little by little. And when I’m inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I’m a weak person, that I bruise easily, don’t you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It’s like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere.

Haruki Murakami
Eye, Mean, Thinking

I wondered if she was trying to convey something to me, something she could not put into words - something prior to words that she could not grasp within herself and which therefore had no hope of ever turning into words.

Haruki Murakami
Trying, No Hope, Ifs
Haruki Murakami (2011). “Norwegian Wood”, p.36, Random House

Hatsumi had a pretty good idea that Nagasawa was sleeping around, but she never complained to him. She was seriously in love with him, but she never made demands. 'I don't deserve a girl like Hatsumi,' Nagasawa once said to me. I had to agree with him.

Haruki Murakami
Girl, Sleep, Ideas

I wrote a huge number of letters that spring: one a week to Naoko, several to Reiko, and several more to Midori. I wrote letters in the classroom, I wrote letters at my desk at home with Seagull in my lap, I wrote letters at empty tables during my breaks at the Italian restaurant. It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.

Haruki Murakami
Spring, Home, Writing

Where I went in my travels, it's impossible for me to recall. I remember the sights and sounds and smells clearly enough, but the names of the towns are gone, as well as any sense of the order in which I traveled from place to place.

Haruki Murakami
Sight, Order, Names

Sitting on the floor, I'd replay the past in my head. Funny, that's all I did, day after day after day for half a year, and I never tired of it. What I'd been through seemed so vast, with so many facets. Vast, but real, very real, which was why the experience persisted in towering before me, like a monument lit up at night. And the thing was, it was a monument to me.

Haruki Murakami
Real, Tired, Past
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Nov 12, 2014

All you have to do is wait,” I explained. “Sit tight and wait for the right moment. Not try to change anything by force, just watch the drift of things. Make an effort to cast a fair eye on everything. If you do that, you just naturally know what to do. But everyone’s always too busy. They’re too talented, their schedules are too full. They’re too interested in themselves to think about what’s fair.

Haruki Murakami
Change, Patience, Eye

Let me tell you something, Mari. The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you. And once that happens, you've had it: things'll never be the same. All you can do is go on, living alone down there in the darkness.

Haruki Murakami
Darkness, Looks, Goes On
Haruki Murakami (2011). “After Dark”, p.158, Random House

"Dance," said the Sheep Man. "Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougotta dance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou're tired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, okay? Justdon'tletyourfeetstop."

Haruki Murakami
Tired, Men, Sheep
Haruki Murakami (2011). “Dance Dance Dance”, p.86, Random House

The whole terrible fight occured in the area of imagination. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there, that we experience our victories and defeats.

Haruki Murakami
Fighting, Victory And Defeat, Imagination

I love pop culture -- the Rolling Stones, the Doors, David Lynch, things like that. That's why I said I don't like elitism.

Haruki Murakami
Doors, Rolling, Culture

Her smile steps offstage for a moment, then does an encore, all while I'm dealing with my blushing face.

Haruki Murakami
Doe, Faces, Steps

Wasn't he the one who said you shouldn't trust anybody who calls himself an ordinar man? - Naoko

Haruki Murakami
Men, Said

So what’s wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?

Haruki Murakami
Guy, Trying, World

How many Sundays - how many hundreds of Sundays like this - lay ahead of me? “Quiet, peaceful, and lonely,” I said aloud to myself. On Sundays, I didn't wind my spring.

Haruki Murakami
Lonely, Spring, Sunday
"Norwegian Wood". Book by Haruki Murakami, 2000.

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