Quotes from Haruki Murakami

People naturally pay their respects to the dead. The person had, after all, just accomplished the personal, profound feat of dying.

I find the act of writing very painful. I can go a whole month without managing a single line, or write three days and nights straight, only to find the whole thing has missed the mark. At the same time, though, I love writing. Ascribing meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually living it.

But we cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever.

Each way of thinking has its own shape and color, which wax and wane like the moon.

Cops, Hoshino concluded, not for the first time in his life, are just gangsters who get paid by the state.

Thinking about lunch. Smoked salmon with pedigreed lettuce and razor-sharp slices of onion that have been soaked in ice water, brushed with horseradish and mustard, served on French butter rolls baked in the hot ovens of Kinokuniya. A sandwich made in heaven

I thought about the screws and their happiness. Maybe they were glad to be free of the eggbeater, to be independent screws, to luxuriate on white trays. It did feel good to see them happy.

Memory works in different ways for everybody. Different capacities, different directions, too. Sometimes memory helps you think, sometimes it impedes. Doesn't mean it's good or bad. Probably means it's no big deal.

When did my youth slip away from me? I suddenly thought. It was over, wasn't it? Seemed just like yesterday I was still only half grown up. Huey Lewis and the News had a couple of hit songs then. Not so many years ago. And now here I was, inside a closed circuit, spinning my wheels. Knowing I wasn't getting anywhere but spinning just the same. I had to. Had to keep that up or I wouldn't be able to survive.

So that's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us--that's snatched right out of our hands--even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence.

A state of chronic powerlessness eats away at a person

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the world is made up of all kinds of people. Other people have their own value to live by, and the same holds true with me.

Passion can't sustain itself forever.

Memory can give warmth to time.

No matter how vivid memories may be, they can't win out against the power of time.

Two people can sleep in the same bed and still be alone when they close their eyes.

It was the age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me.

It seems to me that very sad things always contain an element of the comical

Everything has a bright side," he said. "The top of even the blackest, thickest cloud shines like silver.

Why a unicorn? Maybe the unicorn, too, is one of the Men Without Women. I mean, I've never seen a unicorn couple. He -- it has to be a he, right? -- is always alone, sharp horn thrust toward the sky. Maybe we should adopt him as the symbol of Men Without Women, of the loneliness we carry as our burden. Perhaps we should sew unicorn badges on our breast pockets and hats, and quietly parade down streets all over the world. No music, no flags, no ticker tape. Probably.

I love music, but I can't sing a note.

I believe that love is the indispensable fuel for us to go on living. Someday that love may end. Or it may never amount to anything. But even if love fades away, even if it's unrequited, you can still hold on to the memory of having loved someone, of having fallen in love with someone. And that's a valuable source of warmth.

Mañana lloverá porque un oso polar se ha comido las estrellas.

Nobody would take the time and effort to hang a fake moon in a real sky.