Murakami Quotes

Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in flight, searching the skies for dreams.

I have a million things to talk to you about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.

No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself.

Say it before you run out of time. Say it before it's too late. Say what you're feeling. Waiting is a mistake.

I probably still haven’t completely adapted to the world. I don’t know, I feel like this isn’t the real world. The people, the scene: they just don’t seem real to me.

But if you knew you might not be able to see it again tomorrow, everything would suddenly become special and precious, wouldn’t it?

The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time.

When I first met you, I felt a kind of contradiction in you. You’re seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away for all you’re worth.

When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it -- to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once.

Chance encounters are what keep us going.

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.

I happen to like the strange ones. People who look normal and leads normal lives - they're the ones you have to watch out for.

Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.

What makes us the most normal," said Reiko, "is knowing that we're not normal.

I don't know, there's something about you. Say there's an hourglass: the sand's about to run out. Someone like you can always be counted on to turn the thing over.

A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do.

You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.

Be fearless, be brave, be bold, love yourself

Whenever I look at the ocean, I always want to talk to people, but when I'm talking to people, I always want to look at the ocean.

Everyone who has something is afraid of losing it, and people with nothing are worried they'll forever have nothing. Everyone is the same.

We're both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We're connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.

Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely.

Please think of me like an endangered species and just observe me quietly from far away. If you try to talk to me or touch me casually, I may get intimidated and bite you. So please be careful.

You’re optimistic one moment, only to be racked the next by the certainty that it will all fall to pieces. And in the end it does.

Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.

I'm all alone, but I'm not lonely.

I don't care what you do to me, but I don't want you to hurt me. I've had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy.

I don't know -- maybe the world has two different kinds of people, and for one kind the world is this completely logical, rice pudding place, and for the other it's all hit-or-miss macaroni gratin.

We're all kind of weird and twisted and drowning.

The thing I’m most afraid of is me. Of not knowing what I’m going to do. Of not knowing what I’m doing right now

Sometimes when I think of life, I feel like a piece of driftwood washed up on shore.

Sometimes you’re just the sweetest thing. Like Christmas, summer vacation, and a brand-new puppy rolled into one.

I've been immersed in manga since I was a kid. I grew up with this culture. So I started to think about how to compare manga to contemporary art.

My aesthetic sense was formed at a young age by what surrounded me: the narrow residential spaces of Japan and the mental escapes from those spaces that took the forms of manga and anime.

There is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.

Sometimes it's not the people who change, it's the mask that falls off.

Even if we could turn back, we'd probably never end up where we started.

Everyone of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.

To be able to talk to your heart’s content about a book you like with someone who feels the same way about it is one of the greatest joys that life can offer.

One foot in front of the other. Repeat as often as necessary to finish.

Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.

When people tell a lie about something, they have to make up a bunch of lies to go with the first one. ‘Mythomania’ is the word for it.

Rather than a big figure, I guess you could say I'm more of an influential minority symbol.

Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.

There are lots of things we never understand, no matter how many years we put on, no matter how much experience we accumulate.

You got to know your limits. Once is enough, but you got to learn. A little caution never hurt anyone. A good woodsman has only one scar on him. No more, no less.