Haruki Murakami Quotes - Page 2

It was that kind of kiss. But as with all kisses, it was not without a certain element of danger
Haruki Murakami
Because sometimes I have a need for human warmth, I answered honestly. Sometimes, if I can't feel something like the warmth of a woman's skin, I get so lonely I can't stand it.
Haruki Murakami
I could never tell what was going on inside the pretty heads of the girls that Naoko brought along, and they probably couldn't understand me, either.
Haruki Murakami
No, we weren't lovers, but in a way we had opened ourselves to each other even more deeply than lovers do. The thought caused me a good deal of grief. What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for - and to do it so unconsciously.
Haruki Murakami
One thing became crystal clear to me when I couldn't see you anymore. I realized that the only way I had been able to survive until then was having you in my life. When I lost you, the pain and loneliness really got to me.
Haruki Murakami
I loved Midori. And I had probably known as much for a while. I had just been avoiding the conclusion for a very long time.
Haruki Murakami
I still loved Naoko. Bent and twisted as that love might be, I did love her. Somewhere inside me, there was still preserved a broad, open space, untouched, for Naoko and no one else.
Haruki Murakami
I have always loved Naoko, and I still loved her. But there is a decisive finality to what exists between Midori and me.
Haruki Murakami
But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have for happiness where you find it, and not worry too much about other people. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a lifetime, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.
Haruki Murakami
I'd swallow some whiskey and listen to the waves while I thought about Naoko. It was too strange to think that she was dead and no longer part of this world. I couldn't absorb the truth of it. I couldn't believe it. I had heard the nails being driven into the lid of her coffin, but I still couldn't adjust to the fact that she had returned to nothingness.
Haruki Murakami
Waiting for your answer is one of the most painful things I have ever been through. At least let me know whether or not I hurt you
Haruki Murakami
No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow.
Haruki Murakami
I suddenly thought about my old girlfriend, the one I had first slept with in my third year of high school. Chills ran through me as I realized how badly I had treated her. I had hardly ever thought about her thoughts or feelings or the pain I had caused her. She was such a sweet and gentle thing, but at the time I had taken her sweetness for granted and later hardly gave her a second thought. What was she doing now? I wondered. And had she forgiven me?
Haruki Murakami
I thought about Kizuki. "So you finally made Naoko yours," I heard myself telling him. Oh, well, she was yours to begin with. Now maybe, she's where she belongs. But in this world, in this imperfect world of the living, I did the best I could for Naoko.
Haruki Murakami
I straightened up and looked out the plane window at the dark clouds hanging over the North Sea, thinking of what I had lost in the course of my life: times gone forever, friends who had died or disappeared, feelings I would never know again.
Haruki Murakami
I know, too, why she asked me not to forget her. Naoko herself knew, of course. She knew that my memories of her would fade. Which is precisely why she begged me never to forget her, to remember that she had existed. The thought fills me with an almost unbearable sorrow. Because Naoko never loved me.
Haruki Murakami
Once upon a time, you dragged a part of me into the world of the dead, and now Naoko has dragged another pat of me into that world.
Haruki Murakami
Everything seems pointless since you left
Haruki Murakami
Too many memories of her were crammed inside of me, and as soon as one of them found the slightest opening, the rest would force their way out in an endless stream, an unstoppable flood.
Haruki Murakami
I think of you now mare than ever. It's raining today.
Haruki Murakami
Not everybody is looking for a boyfriend with a sports car.
Haruki Murakami
I look around me sometimes and I get sick to my stomach. Why the hell don't these bastards do something? I wonder. They don't do a damn thing, and then they bitch.
Haruki Murakami
I had thought about it so often - too often, to the point where it had distorted my sense of time.
Haruki Murakami
Here I was, seeing you almost every week, and talking with you, and knowing that the only one in your heart was Kizuki. It hurt. It really hurt. And I think that's why I slept with girls I didn't know.
Haruki Murakami
You want to know why you felt that way about me even though you didn't love me.
Haruki Murakami
There was much about him that was fine and beautiful, but he could never find the confidence he needed.
Haruki Murakami
I went on loving him just the same, and I could never be interested in anyone else.
Haruki Murakami
No, it's not sick. I wish I could be the one to hold you, though, I said. So hold me. Now. Right here.
Haruki Murakami
I miss you something awful sometimes
Haruki Murakami
It's hard not being able to see you, but my life in Tokyo would be a lot worse if it weren't for you.
Haruki Murakami
If you think about it, an unfair society that makes it possible for you to exploit your abilities to the limit.
Haruki Murakami
Maybe so, but I'm not just looking up at the sky and waiting for the fruit to drop. In my own way, I'm working hard. I'm working ten times harder than you are.
Haruki Murakami
In any case, though, I believe that I have not been fair to you and that, as a result, I must have led you around in circles and hurt you deeply.
Haruki Murakami
I have a million things to talk to you about. A million things we have to talk about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.
Haruki Murakami
They dig holes from time to time,' the Colonel explains. 'It is probably for them what chess is for me. It has no special meaning, does not transport them anywhere. All of us dig at our own pure holes. We have nothing to achieve by our activities, nowhere to get to. Is there not something marvelous about this? We hurt no one and no one gets hurt. No victory, no defeat.
Haruki Murakami
Loving her, and being loved, was the only way I could hold myself together.
Haruki Murakami
And I really wanted to see you, too," she said. "When I couldn’t see you any more, I realized that. It was as clear as if the planets all of a sudden lined up in a row for me. I really need you. You’re a part of me; I’m a part of you.
Haruki Murakami
It's just that the chaos has changed shape. The giraffe and the bear have traded hats, and the bear's switched scarves with the zebra.
Haruki Murakami
I was dying to have a cat. But they wouldn't let me. My mother hated them. Not once in my life have I managed to get something I really wanted. Not once. Can you believe it? You can't understand what it's like to live like that. When you get used to that kind of life--of never having anything you want--then you stop knowing what it is you want.
Haruki Murakami
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
Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time.
Haruki Murakami
Anyhow, even though I might go out on a date with a boy, emotionally I just wouldn't be able to concentrate. I'd be smiling and chatting away, and my mind would be floating around somewhere else, like a balloon with a broken string. I'd be thinking about one unrelated thing after another. I don't know, I guess finally I want to be alone a little while longer. And I want to let my thoughts wander freely. In that sense, I guess, I'm probably still "on the road to recovery.
Haruki Murakami
He would eventually have to pass through the forest, but he felt no fear. Of course - the forest was inside him, he knew, and it made him who he was.
Haruki Murakami
Whenever I look at the ocean, I always want to talk to people, but when I'm talking to people, I always want to look at the ocean.
Haruki Murakami
Looking at the ocean makes me miss people, and hanging out with people makes me miss the ocean.
Haruki Murakami
IT's not death. It's eternal life. And you get't'be yourself. Compared to that, this world isn't but a momentary fantasy. Please don't forget that.
Haruki Murakami
Aomame raised her glass to the moon and asked, “Have you gone to bed with someone in your arms lately?” The moon did not answer. “Do you have any friends?” she asked. The moon did not answer. “Don’t you get tired of always playing it cool?” The moon did not answer.
Haruki Murakami
Anyhow, I took every stitch of clothing off and got out of bed. And I got down on my knees on the floor in the white moonlight. The heat was off and the room must have been cold, but I didn’t feel cold. There was some kind of special something in the moonlight and it was wrapping my body in a thin, skintight film. At least that’s how I felt. I just stayed there naked for a while, spacing out, but then I took turns holding different parts of my body out to be bathed in the moonlight. I don’t know, it just seemed like the most natural thing to do. The moonlight was so absolutely, incredibly beautiful that I couldn’t not do it. My head and shoulders and arms and breasts and tummy and bottom and, you know, around there: one after another, I dipped them in the moonlight, like taking a bath.
Haruki Murakami
The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring - and all of the acts carried out - on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories. All it did was embrace the heavy past with a cool, measured detachment. On the moon there was neither air nor wind. Its vacuum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed. No one could unlock the heart of the moon. Aomame raised her glass to the moon and asked, “Have you gone to bed with someone in your arms lately?” The moon did not answer. “Do you have any friends?” she asked. The moon did not answer. “Don’t you get tired of always playing it cool?”The moon did not answer.
Haruki Murakami
There was just one moon. That familiar, yellow, solitary moon. The same moon that silently floated over fields of pampas grass, the moon that rose--a gleaming, round saucer--over the calm surface of lakes, that tranquilly beamed down on the rooftops of fast-asleep houses. The same moon that brought the high tide to shore, that softly shone on the fur of animals and enveloped and protected travelers at night. The moon that, as a crescent, shaved slivers from the soul--or, as a new moon, silently bathed the earth in its own loneliness. THAT moon.
Haruki Murakami
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
The early autumn sun glinted on the water, an enormous mirror ground to powder and scattered.
Haruki Murakami
The world’s crawling with stupid, innocent girls, and I’m just one of them, self-consciously chasing after dreams that will never come true.
Haruki Murakami
I dream, sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.
Haruki Murakami
The whiff of ocean on the southern breeze and the smell of burning asphalt brought back memories of summers past. It had seemed as though those sweet dreams of summer would last forever: the warmth of a girl’s skin, an old rock ‘n’ roll song, freshly washed button-down shirt, the odor of cigarette smoke in a pool changing room, a fleeting premonition. Then one summer (when had it been?) the dreams had vanished, never to return.
Haruki Murakami
I'm your phantom dance partner. I'm your shadow. I'm not anything more.
Haruki Murakami
In response to my father-in-law's view, I offered no opinion. He was not looking for my opinion. He had merely been spouting his belief, a conviction that would remain unchanged for all eternity.
Haruki Murakami
Talent can be a nice thing to have sometimes. You look good, attract attention, and if you’re lucky, you make some money. Women flock to you. In that sense, having talent’s preferable to having none. But talent only functions when it’s supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus. All it takes is one screw in your brain to come loose and fall off, or some connection in your body to break down, and your concentration vanishes, like the dew at dawn.[…]If talent’s the foundation you rely on, and yet it’s so unreliable that you have no idea what’s going to happen to it the next minute, what meaning does it have?
Haruki Murakami
You can have tons of talent, but it won't necessarily keep you fed. If you have sharp instincts, through, you'll never go hungry.
Haruki Murakami
I know I have a pretty good sense for music, but she was better than me. I used to think it was such a waste! I thought, ‘If only she had started out with a good teacher and gotten the proper training, she’d be so much further along!’ But I was wrong about that. She was not the kind of child who could stand proper training. There just happen to be people like that. They’re blessed with this marvelous talent, but they can’t make the effort to systematize it. They end up squandering it in little bits and pieces. I’ve seen my share of people like that. At first you think they’re amazing. Like, they can sight-read some terrifically difficult piece and do a damn good job playing it all the way through. You see them do it, and you’re overwhelmed. you think, ‘I could never do that in a million years.’ But that’s as far as they go. They can’t take it any further. And why not? Because they won’t put in the effort. Because they haven’t had the discipline pounded into them. They’ve been spoiled. They have just enough talent so they’ve been able to play things well without any effort and they’ve had people telling them how great they are from the time they’re little, so hard work looks stupid to them. They’ll take some piece another kid has to work on for three weeks and polish it off in half the time, so the teacher figures they’ve put enough into it and lets them go to the next thing. And they do that in half the time and go on to the next piece. They never find out what it means to be hammered by the teacher; they lose out on a certain element required or character building. It’s a tragedy.
Haruki Murakami