Quotes from Haruki Murakami

She reads with great concentration. Her eyes rarely move from the pages of the book.

Disfruto de la vida a mi manera. Pero en los últimos tiempos, no dejo de preguntarme que demonios soy. Y bastante seriamente.

If a person would just make the effort, there's something to be learned from everything. From even the most ordinary, commonplace things, there's always something you can learn.

I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough.

If there had been a door within reach that led straight to death, he wouldn't have hesitated to push it open, without a second thought.

He found it increasingly difficult to accept the strict codes of the sect that clashed with ordinary values.

Things are so convenient for us these days, our perceptions are probably that much duller. Even if its the same moon hanging in the sky, we may be looking at something quite different. Four hundred years ago, we might have had richer spirits that were closer to nature.

I stepped out of the shower and dried my hair, rubbed on body lotion, cleaned my ears. Then to the kitchen to heat up the last of the coffee. Only to discover: no one sitting at the opposite side of the table. Staring at that chair where no one sat, I felt like a tiny child in a De Chirico painting, left behind all alone in a foreign country.

El conocimiento es así. El mundo cambia según nuestra percepción. Existe, sin duda alguna, aquí y de esta forma, pero, desde el punto de vista fenoménico el mundo no es sino una posibilidad entre un número infinito de posibilidades. Para ser más preciso, el mundo cambia según dé uno un paso hacia la derecha o hacia la izquierda. Por lo tanto, el mundo se modifica a medida que cambian los recuerdos.

You know how they've got these cookie assortments, and you like some but you don't like others? And you eat up all the ones you like, and the only ones left are the ones you don't like so much? I always think about that when something painful comes up. 'Now I just have to polish these off, and everything'll be OK.' Life is a box of cookies.

A person's last moments are an important thing. You can't choose how you're born, but you can choose how you die.

You're not telling me anything I don't know already. 'Relax your body, and the rest of you will ligthen up.' What's the point of saying that to me? If I relaxed my body now, I'd fall apart. I've always lived like this, and its' the only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd never find my way back. I'd go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. Why can't you see that? How can you talk about watching over me if you can't see that?

Sometimes, when the world gets too hard to live in, I come here for vodka and tonic.

The longer you stay in here , the more you get to thinking that things are normal.

You can hide memories, but you can't erase the history that produced them." Sara looked directly into his eyes.

Everyone may be ordinary, but they're not normal.

He comes out of the mine about the same as when he went in. He has no sense that it was something he decided to do himself, or that he had a choice. He's like totally passive. But I think in real life people are like that. It's not so easy to make choices on your own.

Grasping the doorknob, Tengo turned around one last time and was shocked to see a single tear running down from his father's eye. It shone a dull silver color under the ceiling's fluorescent light. To release that tear, his father must have squeezed every bit of strength from what little emotion he still had left.

And once more I'm struck by how pitiful and pointless this little container called me is, what a lame, shabby being I am. I feel like everything I've ever done in life has been a total waste.

All efforts of reason and analysis are, in a word, like trying to slice through a watermelon with sewing needles. They may leave marks on the outer rind, but the fruity pulp will remain perpetually out of reach.

I can't afford to take responsibilities for others' lives. It's all I can do to bear the weight of my own life and my own loneliness

Für jeden von uns gibt es etwas ganz Besonderes, das sich ihm nur in einem bestimmten Augenblick als schwache kleine Flamme darbietet. Einige achtsame, vom Glück begünstigte Menschen hegen diese Flamme, bis sie groß genug ist, um ihnen wie eine Fackel den Lebensweg zu erhellen. Erlischt diese Flamme jedoch, können wir sie nie wieder entzünden.

Long after the firefly had disappeared, the trail of its light remained inside me, its pale, faint glow hovering on and on in the thick darkness behind my eyelids like a lost soul. More than once I tried stretching my hand out in the dark. My fingers touched nothing. The faint glow remained, just beyond my grasp.

What would be the meaning of a world that did not change when an Idea was extinguished? Can an Idea be so insignificant?