Quotes from Haruki Murakami

If you're looking for fine art or literature, you might want to read some stuff written by the Greeks. Because to create true fine art, slaves are a necessity. That's how the ancient Greeks felt, with slaves working the fields, cooking their meals, rowing their ships, all the while their citizens, under the Mediterranean Sun, indulged in poetry writing and grappled with mathematics. That was their idea of fine art.

She only felt revulsion for any kind if religious fundamentalists. The very thought if such people's intolerant worldview, their inflated sense of their own superiority, and thei callous imposition of their own beliefs on others was enough to fill her with rage.

Since I'm a novelist I'm the opposite of you - I believe that what's most important is what cannot be measured. I'm not denying your way of thinking, but the greater part of people's lives consist of things that are unmeasurable, and trying to change all these to something measurable is realistically impossible.

You're still young, so that's why you say that. When you get to be my age, you'll understand how I feel. How much loneliness the truth can cause sometimes.

Most people believe not so much in truth as in things they wish were the truth. Their eyes may be wide open, but they don't see a thing. Tricking them is as easy as twisting a baby's arm.

I've got people I want to understand and people I want to be understood by.

Still, when you get to a certain age, and have created your own lifestyle and social standing, and only then start having grave doubts about your value as a human being

No matter how much he loved someone, he still couldn't share his life with them. He needed solitary time every day to concentrate, and he couldn't stand it when someone's presence threw off his concentration. If he lived with someone he knew he would end up detesting them. Whether it was his parents, a wife, or children. He feared that above all. He wasn't afraid of loving someone. What he feared was growing to hate someone.

Like the sound of a velvet curtain being drawn aside on a peaceful morning to let sunlight wake someone very special to you.

Life is basically unfair. But even in a situation that's unfair, I think it's possible to seek a kind of fairness.

If you hurt her any more than you already have, the wound could be too deep to fix.

The pain I imagine is worse than the actual pain.

Being alive, if you had to define it, meant emitting a variety of smells

I'm human, after all. I was hurt. But whether it was a lot or a little I can't say.

There are symbolic dreams-dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities-realities that symbolize a dream

Any explanation or logic that explains everything so easily has a hidden trap in it.

It was as if - this something I thought of only later, of course - she was gently peeling back one layer after another that covered a person's heart, a very sensual feeling.

Whether it's good for anything or not, cool or totally uncool, in the final analysis what's most important is what you can't see but can feel in your heart.

Principles and logic didn't give birth to reality. Reality came first, and the principles and logic followed.

He followed his daily routine, and she followed hers. But without her there, Tengo noticed a human-shaped void she had left behind.

There's not much you can do about time - it just keeps on passing. But experience? Don't tell me that. I'm not proud of it, but I don't have any sexual desire. And what sort of experience can a writer have if she doesn't feel passion? It'd be like a chef without an appetite.

I can't build a simple shelf. I have no idea how to change an oil filter on a car. I can't even stick a stamp on an envelope straight. And I'm always dialling the wrong number. But I have come up with a few original cocktails that people seem to like.

She's kind of funny looking. Her face is out of balance--broad forehead, button nose, freckled cheeks, and pointy ears. A slammed-together, rough sort of face you can't ignore. Still, the whole package isn't so bad. For all I know maybe she's not so wild about her own looks, but she seems comfortable with who she is, and that's the important thing.

Twenty years was a long time. But Tengo knew that if he were to meet Aomame in another twenty years, he would feel the same way he did now. Even if they were both over fifty, he would still feel the same mix of excitement and confusion in her presence. His heart would be filled with the same joy and certainty.