Quotes from Haruki Murakami

Time, of course, topples everyone in its path equally- the way that driver beats his old horse until it dies. But the thrashing we receive is one of frightful gentleness. Few of us even realize that we are being beaten.

Maybe in some distant place, everything is already, quietly, lost. Or at least there exists a silent place where everything can disappear. Or at least there exists a silent place where everything can disappear, melting together in a single overlapping figure. And as we live our lives we discover—drawing toward us the thin threads attached to each—what has been lost.

It's unfair. As a rule, life is unfair, I said. Yeah, but I think I did say some awful things. To Dick? Yeah. I pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road and turned off the ignition. That's just stupid, that kind of thinking, I said, nailing her with my eyes. Instead of regretting what you did, you could have treated him decently from the beginning. You could've tried to be fair. But you didn't. You don't even have the right to be sorry.

She was hearing everything that went on in his heart, like a person who can trace a map with his fingertip and conjure up vivid, living scenery.

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.

We returned to the hotel and had intercourse. I like that word intercourse . It poses only a limited range of possibilities.

Toru: What happens when people open their hearts? Reiko: They get better.

I tell lies sometimes. The last time I lied was a year ago. I absolutely detest lying. You could say that lying and silence are the two greatest sins of present day society. Actually, I lie a lot, and I'm always clamming up.

Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent.

Dreams are the kind of things you can—when you need to—borrow and lend out

Maybe it's been like that for you till now. But you're not a kid anymore. You have the right to choose your own life. You can start again. If you want a cat, all you have to do is choose a life in which you can have a cat. It's simple. It's your right... right?

They take the circuits out of people's brains that make it possible for them to think for themselves. Their world is like the one that George Orwell depicted in his novel. I'm sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that kind of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don't have to think about difficult things, just shut up and do what your superiors tell you to do.

I might think I can't take it any more, that I can't go on any more, but one way or another I get past that.

As Duke Ellington once said, "There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind." In that sense, jazz and classical music are fundamentally the same. The pure joy one experiences listening to "good" music transcends questions of genre.

It might be a little silly for someone getting to be my age to put this into words, but I just want to make sure I get the facts down clearly : I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two everyday running alone, not speaking to anyone as well as four of five hours at my desk, to be neither difficult or boring.

What do we talk about? Just ordinary things. What happened today, or books we've read, or tomorrow's weather, you know. Don't tell me you're wondering if people jump to their feet and shout stuff like 'It'll rain tomorrow if a polar bear eats the stars tonight!

It's a quiet place, so people talk quietly, said Naoko. She made a neat pile of fish bones at the edge of her plate and dabbed at her mouth with a handkerchief. There's no need to raise your voice here. You don't have to convince anybody of anything, and you don't have to attract anyone's attention.

There in the dim light, staring at the shadow on the wall, I poured out the story of my life. (…) How nothing touched me. And I touched nothing. How I'd lost track of what mattered. How I worked like a fool for things that didn't. How it didn't make a difference either way.

We keep moving. And as we do, the things around us, well, they disappear.

Reality was one step out of line, a cardigan with the buttons done up wrong.

You like to write. It's the single most important quality for someone who wants to be a writer. But not in itself enough.

Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those who care about a broken lock, and others who are dutiful enough to try to fix it … But maybe that's the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.

he made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least 30 years. That's the only kind of book I can trust, he said. It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature, he added, but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

Expression and communication are essential; without these, civilization ends.