Quotes from Haruki Murakami

Are you asking because you really want an answer?

Most of the troubles in life come on all of a sudden.

Entonces no lo sabía. No sabía que era capaz de herir a alguien tan hondamente que jamás se repusiera. A veces, hay personas que pueden herir a los demás por el mero hecho de existir

Each day the sun would rise and set, the flag would be raised and lowered. Each Sunday I would have a date with my dead friend's girl. I had no idea what I was doing or what I was going to do.

Love and used Subarus were two different things. Weren't they?

I was desperately clinging to a scrap of wood that had been swept away. In pitch-black darkness, not a single star, or the moon, visible in the sky. As long as I clung to that piece of wood I wouldn't drown, but I had no clue where I was, where I was heading.

I'm all through as a human being," she said. "All you're looking at is the lingering memory of what I used to be. The most important part of me, what used to be inside, died years ago, and I'm just functioning by rote memory.

The scene seemed somehow divorced from reality, although reality, he knew, could at times be terribly unreal.

There are some things in this world that can be done over, and some that can't. And time passing is one thing that can't be redone. Come this far, and you can't go back.

I hate requests. They make me feel unhappy. It's like when I take a book out of the library. As soon as I start to read it, all I can think about is when I'll finish it.

With the advent of winter, her eyes seemed to take on a greater transparency, a transparency that lead nowhere. Occassionally, for no particular reason, Naoko would gaze into my eyes as if searching for something. Each time I was filled with odd sensations of lonliness and inadequecy.

The worst thoughts usually strike in the dead of the night.

Sometimes we don't need words. Rather, it's words that need us.

There was something odd for him about not feeling lonely. The very fact that he had ceased to be lonely caused him to fear the possibility of becoming lonely again.

But even though I was with my father again, I never felt really secure deep down. I don't know how to put it exactly, but things were never really settled inside me. I always had this feeling like, I don't know, like somebody was putting something over on me, like my real father had disappeared forever and, to fill the gap, some other guy was sent to me in his shape.

My life is like a trunk stuffed with dirty laundry. It contains more than enough material to drive any one human being to mental aberration - maybe two or three people's worth? My sex life alone would do. It's nothing I could talk about to anyone. No, I can't go to a doctor. I have to solve this on my own.

To understand something and to put that something into a form that you can see with your own eyes are two completely different things. If you could manage to do both equally well, living would be a lot simpler (from Honey Pie)

This uneasiness comes over me from time to time, and I feel as if I've somehow been pieced together from two different puzzles.

The total amount of time available is especially limited. The clock is ticking as we speak. Time rushes past. Opportunities are lost right and left. If you have money, you can buy time. You can even buy freedom if you want. Time and freedom: those are the most important things that people can buy with money.

I have a thing about losers. Flaws in oneself open you up to others with flaws.

I think I'll stay alive here a bit longer, and see with my own eyes what's going to happen. I can still die after that - it won't be too late. Probably.

In real life things don't go so smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news.

It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine.

You have to overcome the fear and anger inside you," the boy named Crow says. "Let a bright light shine in and melt the coldness in your heart. That's what being tough is all about. Do that and you really will be the toughest fifteen-year-old on the planet. You following me? There's still time. You can still get your self back. Use your head. Think about what you've got to do. You're no dunce. You should be able to figure it out.