Quotes from Haruki Murakami

here she is, all mine, trying her best to give me all she can. How could I ever hurt her? But I didn't understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.

In everybody's life there's a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can't go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That's how we survive.

Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still.

Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time.

I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.

In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount.

Letters are just pieces of paper, I said. Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish.

I have a million things to talk to you 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.

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. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.

Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don't know a soul?

Not just beautiful, though--the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me.

The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time.

Of course it hurt that we could never love each other in a physical way. We would have been far more happy if we had. But that was like the tides, the change of seasons--something immutable, an immovable destiny we could never alter. No matter how cleverly we might shelter it, our delicate friendship wasn't going to last forever. We were bound to reach a dead end. That was painfully clear.

As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself.

Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe.

The most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned at school.

For a while is a phrase whose length can't be measured.At least by the person who's waiting.

Sometimes I feel so- I don't know - lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when everything you're used to has been ripped away. Like there's no more gravity, and I'm left to drift in outer space with no idea where I'm going' Like a little lost Sputnik?' I guess so.

That's what the world is , after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.

Only the Dead stay seventeen forever.

A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.

Chance encounters are what keep us going.

No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That's all.

If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark