Authors:

Haruki Murakami Quotes - Page 41

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'd wake up at two or three in the morning and not be able to fall asleep again. i'd get out of bed, go to the kitchen, and pour myself a whiskey. glass in hand, i'd look down at the darkened cemetary across

sometimes i'd wake up at two or three in the morning and not be able to fall asleep again. i'd get out of bed, go to the kitchen, and pour myself a whiskey. glass in hand, i'd look down at the darkened cemetary across teh way and the headlights of the cars on the road. the moments of time linking night and dawn were long and dark. if i could cry, it might make things easier. but what would i cry over? i was too self centered to cry for other people, too old to cry for myself.

Haruki Murakami
Morning, Fall, Dark
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Feb 13, 2012

Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else. I'd move to Casablanca, open a bar, and I'd meet Ingrid Bergman. Or more realistically - whether actually more realistic or not - I'd tune in on a better life, something more suited to my true self. Toward that end, I had to undergo training. I read The Greening of America, and I saw Easy Rider three times. But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.

Haruki Murakami
Moving, America, Self
"Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World". Book by Haruki Murakami, September 1991.

I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them. I always hope to position myself away from so-called conclusions. I would like to leave everything wide open to all the possibilities in the world.

Haruki Murakami
Jobs, Thinking, Judging

In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion,'" she repeats, making sure of it. If she had paper and pencil, it wouldn't surprise me if she wrote it down. "So what does that really mean? In simple terms." I think it over. It takes me a while to gather my thoughts, but she waits patiently. "I think it means," I say, "that chance encounters are what keep us going. In simple terms.

Haruki Murakami
Mean, Thinking, Compassion
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jul 16, 2011

My only passions were books and music. As you might guess, I led a lonely life… Not that I knew what I wanted in life - I didn’t. I loved reading novels to distraction, but didn’t write well enough to be a novelist; being an editor or a critic was out, too, since my tastes ran to the extremes. Novels should be for pure personal enjoyment, I decided, not part of your work or study. That’s why I didn’t study literature

Haruki Murakami
Lonely, Book, Reading

They put up with such strenuous training, and where did their thoughts, their hopes and dreams, disappear to? When people pass away, do their thoughts just vanish?

Haruki Murakami
Dream, People, Training
Haruki Murakami (2011). “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”, p.76, Random House

It’s precisely because of the pain, the we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive—or at least a partial sense of it.

Haruki Murakami
Pain, Feelings, Alive
Haruki Murakami (2011). “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”, p.171, Random House

Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents.

Haruki Murakami
Might, Persons, Objects

Of course you keep telling yourself there's something to be learned from everything, and growing old shouldn't be that hard. That's the general drift.

Haruki Murakami
Growing, Courses, Hard
Haruki Murakami (1987). “風の歌を聴け”

I want to write stories that are different from the ones I've written so far, Junpei thought: I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love. But right now I have to stay here and keep watch over this woman and this girl. I will never let anyone-not anyone-try to put them into that crazy box- not even if the sky should fall or the earth crack open with a roar.

Haruki Murakami
Girl, Dream, Crazy
Haruki Murakami (2004). “Vintage Murakami”, Vintage

I think certain types of processes don’t allow for any variation. If you have to be part of that process, all you can do is transform—or perhaps distort—yourself through that persistent repetition, and make that process a part of your own personality.

Haruki Murakami
Thinking, Personality, Variation

I think most people live in fiction...That's how you keep your fragile body intact.

Haruki Murakami
Thinking, People, Fiction

And it was the kind of thing that loses the most important nuances when reduced to words. He had never told anyone about it, and he probably never would.

Haruki Murakami
Important, Nuance, Kind

How about Proust's In Search of Lost Time?" Tamaru asked. "If you've never read it this would be a good opportunity to read the whole thing." "Have you read it?" "No, I haven't been in jail, or had to hide out for a long time. Someone once said unless you have those kinds of opportunities, you can't read the whole of Proust.

Haruki Murakami
Opportunity, Jail, Long

You said you're going far away," Tamaru said. "How far away are we talking about?" "It's a distance that can't be measured." "Like the distance that separates one person's heart from another's.

Haruki Murakami
Distance, Heart, Talking

I'm not trying to imply I can keep up this silent, isolated facade all the time. Sometimes the wall I've erected around me comes crumbling down. It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes, before I even realize what's going on, there I am--naked and defenseless and totally confused. At times like that I always feel an omen calling out to me, like a dark, omnipresent pool of water. ~page 10

Haruki Murakami
Wall, Confused, Dark

I tell you, Mr. Okada, a cold beer at the end of the day is the best thing life has to offer. Some choosy people say that a too cold beer doesn't taste good, but I couldn't disagree more. The first beer should be so cold you can't even taste it. The second one should be a little less chilled, but I want that first one to be like ice. I want it to be so cold my temples throb with pain. This is my own personal preference of course.

Haruki Murakami
Pain, Beer, Ice

The facts and techniques or whatever they teach you in class isn't going to be veryuseful in the real world, that's for sure.

Haruki Murakami
Real, Class, Technique

As long as possible, I would really like to complete one marathon per year. Though my time has been slowing down as I get older, it has become a very important part of my life.

Haruki Murakami
Years, Long, Important

The honour of physical decline is waiting, and you have to get used to that reality.

Haruki Murakami
Reality, Waiting, Used
"What I Talk about When I Talk about Running". Book by Haruki Murakami, October 15, 2007.

If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course, you have to be strong mentally, also. But in the first place, you have to be strong physically. That is a very important thing. Physically and mentally you have to be strong.

Haruki Murakami
Strong, Writing, Years
"Haruki Murakami: 'I took a gamble and survived'". Interview With Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. October 14, 2011.

Everything. Things you lost. Things you’re gonna lose. Everything. Here’s where it all ties together.

Haruki Murakami
Ties, Together, Lost Things

I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt but I was wrong.

Haruki Murakami
Hurt, Pain, Imagine

I have no idea! I have been writing for 35 years and from the beginning up to now the situation's almost the same. I'm kind of an ugly duckling. Always the duckling, never the swan.

Haruki Murakami
Writing, Swans, Ugly Duckling
"Haruki Murakami: 'I'm an outcast of the Japanese literary world'" by Steven Poole, www.theguardian.com. September 13, 2014.

What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.

Haruki Murakami
Dark, Night, Breathtaking
"The Wind-up Bird Chronicle". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1997.

You May Also Like: