Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami

"Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it."
162 Quotes
"Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it."
Haruki Murakami Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories
"Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt."
Haruki Murakami Norwegian Wood
"When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf."
Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
"Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library."
Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking."
Haruki Murakami Norwegian Wood
"Don't tell me anymore. You should have your dream, as the old woman told you to. I understand how you feel, but if you put those feelings into words they will turn into lies. (from Thailand)"
Haruki Murakami After the Quake
"You throw a stone into a deep pond. Splash. The sound is big, and it reverberates throughout the surrounding area. What comes out of the pond after that? All we can do is stare at the pond, holding our breath."
Haruki Murakami 1Q84
"At some point the future becomes reality. And then it quickly becomes the past."
Haruki Murakami 1Q84
"What I was chasing in circles must have been the tail of the darkness inside me."
Haruki Murakami After the Quake
"This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: 'At the time, no one knew what was coming."
Haruki Murakami 1Q84
"There are symbolic dreams-- dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities -- realities that symbolize a dream. Symbols are what you might call the honorary town councillors of the worm universe. In the worm universe, there is nothing unusual about a dairy cow seeking a pair of pliers. A cow is bound to get her pliers sometime. It has nothing to do with me."
Haruki Murakami A Wild Sheep Chase
"In dreams begins responsiblities."
Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
"Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn't control you--you should control them."
Haruki Murakami Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories
"In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality."
Haruki Murakami Sputnik Sweetheart
"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."
Haruki Murakami Sputnik Sweetheart
"With each passing moment I'm becoming part of the past. There is no future for me, just the past steadily accumulating."
Haruki Murakami Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
"I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do."
Haruki Murakami Sputnik Sweetheart
"“I do feel that I’ve managed to make something I could maybe call my world…over time…little by little. And when I’m inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I’m a weak person, that I bruise easily, don’t you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It’s like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere.”"
Haruki Murakami After Dark
"People soon get tired of things that aren't boring, but not of what is boring."
Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
"The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues...[But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings."
Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
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