Quotes from Haruki Murakami

Un buen día, de repente, te conviertes en un hombre sin mujer. Ese día sobreviene de repente, sin mediar el menor indicio o aviso, sin corazonadas ni presentimientos, sin llamar a la puerta y sin carraspeos. Al doblar la esquina, te das cuenta de que ya estás allí. Y no puedes dar marcha atrás. Una vez que doblas la esquina, se convierte en tu único mundo. En ese mundo pasan a decir que eres uno de esos hombres sin mujeres. En un plural gélido.

The further we traveled in the darkness, the more I began to feel estranged from my body. I couldn't see it, and after a while, you start to think the body is nothing but a hypothetical construct.

What's really important for people, what really has dignity, is how they die. Compared to that, he thought, how you lived doesn't amount to much. Still, how you live determines how you die.

There was a small stand of trees nearby, and from it you could hear the mechanical cry of a bird that sounded as if it were winding a spring. We called it the wind-up bird. Kumiko gave it the name. We didn't know what it was really called or what it looked like, but that didn't bother the wind-up bird. Every day it would come to the stand of trees in our neighborhood and wind the spring of our quiet little world.

He was dead tired, thanks to which, whatever emotions he might have had, simply came and went without gaining a foothold. The Rat began to relax and lay down his empty head on the mingled sounds of the waves and the deejay until sleep crept over him.

perhaps our lives are merely decorative, expendable items, a burst of fleeting color and nothing more.

Reality recedes until you can't tell who's sane and who's not.

Like Naokuo, I'm not really sure what it means to love another person. Though she meant it a little differently. I do want to try my best though. I have to, or else I won't know where to go. Like you said before, Naoko and I have to save each other. It's the only was for us to be saved!

Strangely transparent, they seemed like windows to a world beyond, but however long I peered into there depths, there was nothing I could see.

He calmed himself, shut his eyes, and fell asleep. The rear light of consciousness, like the last express train of the night, began to fade into the distance, gradually speeding up, growing smaller until it was, finally, sucked into the depths of night, where it disappeared. All that remained was the sound of the wind slipping through a stand of white birch trees.

I don't know, but does it matter?

We're talking about people, not common denominators.

We each have a special something we can get only at a special time of our life. Like a small flame. A careful, fortunate few cherish that flame, nurture it, hold it as a torch to light their way. But once that flame goes out, it's gone forever. What I'd lost was not just Sumire. I'd lost that precious flame.

And you came to Finland to build a station? No I came here on vacation to visit a friend. That's good, the driver said. Vacations and friends are the two best things in life.

Compared to them I'm pretty used to losing. There are plenty of things in this world that are way beyond me, plenty of opponents I can never beat. Not to brag, but these girls probably don't know as much as I do about pain. And, quite naturally, there might not be a need for them to know it. These random thoughts come to me as I watch their proud ponytails swinging back and forth, their aggressive strides. Keeping to my own leisurely pace, I continue my run down along the Charles.

Sara said she has feelings for me. He had no reason to doubt it. But there are countless things in the world for which affection is not enough. Life is long, and sometimes cruel . Sometimes victims are needed. Someone has to take on that role. And human bodies are fragile, easily damaged. Cut them, and they bleed.

There're all sorts of cats—just like there're all sorts of people.

The warmth and the pain came as a pair, and unless he accepted the pain, he wouldn't feel the warmth. It was a kind of trade off.

Debería haberme tomado en serio sus sentimientos, abrazarla con fuerza. Eso era lo que ella buscaba. Ser aceptada y abrazada sin condiciones. Debería haberle hecho sentirse segura aunque sólo fuera una vez.

Whenever I got home late, I'd always go to my son's room first, to see his sleeping face. Sometimes I was seized by a desire to squeeze him so hard he might break.

There are people who can open their hearts and people who can't. You're one of the ones who can. Or, more precisely, you can if you want to. - What happens when people open their hearts? - They get better.

and as long as I kept my body moving I could forget about the emptiness inside.

En muchos casos, el dolor se puede mitigar y suprimir mediante otro dolor diferente. La sensibilidad es algo completamente relativo.

I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. Just as you take care of the birds and the fields every morning, every morning I wind my own spring.