Quotes from Haruki Murakami

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.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it's not imagination. It's just a way of watching.

I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.

I've run the Boston Marathon 6 times before. I think the best aspects of the marathon are the beautiful changes of the scenery along the route and the warmth of the people's support. I feel happier every time I enter this marathon.

Since I have come to America, I am often asked whether my next novel will be set in America. I don't think it will. I think I will be living in America for some time to come, but while living in America, I would like to write about Japanese society from the outside.

Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.

I don't want to express my opinion about actual politics, because if I do, I have to be responsible for my decision.

I didn't read so much Japanese literature. Because my father was a teacher of Japanese literature, I just wanted to do something else.

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.

I think you still love me, but we can't escape the fact that I'm not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I'm not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I'm not angry, either. I should be, but I'm not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.

What happens when people open their hearts?" "They get better.

Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment.

No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.

Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.

Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star. It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.

It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story .

But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.

I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?

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.

Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.