Quotes from Haruki Murakami

Selama punya sikap untuk mau belajar dari berbagai hal, maka tiap bertambah usia tentu tidak begitu terasa menyakitkan

In any case, suffice it to say I enjoyed hearing about faraway places. I had stocked up a whole store of these places, like a bear getting ready for hibernation. I'd close my eyes, and streets would materialize, rows of houses take shape. I could hear people's voices, feel the gentle, steady rhythm of their lives, those people so distant, whom I'd probably never know.

One could say that the greatest sins afflicting modern society are the proliferation of lies and silence. We lie through our teeth, then swallow our tongues. -from Heart the Wind Sing

But things never go the way you want them to, and this was no exception. The world seemed to have a better sense of how you wanted things not to go.

My face, my self, what would they mean to anybody? Just another stiff. So this self of mine passes some other's self on the street — what do we have to say to each other? Hey there! Hi ya! That's about it. Nobody raises a hand. No one turns around to take another look.

One by one, with my own hands, I had to make this thing I called 'I'-- or, rather, make the things that constituted me.

It's sometimes hard to avoid losing. Nobody's going to win all the time.

No existe en ninguna parte del mundo real nada tan bello como las fantasías que alberga quien ha perdido la cordura.

When people are dead, you can forgive them 'most anything.

If you can let it go at not understanding, that's the best anyone could expect.

Your true heart lives in your memory. It is nourished by the images it contains—that's how it lives," a woman said.

Reality is endlessly cold and lonely.

Perhaps this was the wisdom with which a child in her position survived: by minimizing her wounds—staying as small as possible, as nearly transparent as possible.

Telling lies is a really terrible thing. These days, lies and silence are the two greatest sins in human society you might say. In reality, we tell lots of lies, and we often break into silence. However, if we were constant;y talking year-round, and telling only the truth truth would probably lose some of its value.

Someday you'll find the right person, and you'll learn to have a lot more confidence in yourself. That's what I think. So don't settle for anything less. In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount

The house kept its own time, like the old-fashioned grandfather clock in the living room. People who happened by raised the weights, and as long as the weights were wound, the clock continued ticking away. But with people gone and the weights unattended, whole chunks of time were left to collect in deposits of faded life on the floor.

For now, however, I am not prepared to see you. It's not that I don't want to see you: I'm simply not prepared for it. The moment I feel ready, I will write to you. Perhaps then we can get to know each other better. As you say, this is probably what we should do: get to know each other better. Good bye.

Not to excuse myself, but when you have people right in front of you denying your very presence like that, then see if you don't doubt whether you actually exist. I look at my hands half expecting to see clear through them.

There was nothing I could say, so I said nothing.

I shouted into the phone, but there was no reply. Silence floated up from the receiver like smoke from the mouth of a gun.

If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.

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

Those people digging around in the refrigerator at 3am, those are the only people I can write for. And that, is me.

No. Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger and, I believe, it is far more inconstant.