Murakami Quotes

I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next.

It's basically impossible for everybody's justice to prevail or everybody's happiness to triumph, so chaos takes over.

Whatever can't be expressed might as well not exist.

Stories lie deep in our souls. Stories lie so deep at the bottom of our hearts that they can bring people together on the deepest level. When I write a novel, I go into such depths.

I think history is collective memories. In writing, I'm using my own memory, and I'm using my collective memory.

My point is: in this whole wide world the only person you can depend on is you.

Certain kinds of knowledge rob people of their sleep.

Tell me, Doctor, are you afraid of death?" "I guess it depends on how you die.

When you're young, you think you can handle anything. By the time you find out otherwise, it's already too late. You got a stocking wrapped around your neck.

The world would be a pretty dull place if it were made up only of the first-rate, right?

If we reverse the outer shell and the essence--in other words, consider the outer shell the essence and the essence only the shell--our lives might be a whole lot easier to understand.

...I've just been feeling insecure since I was 20, and that's all I've been trying to express. Now the entire world is feeling insecure.

Rousseau defined civilizations as when people build fences.

It's a terrible thing when a person dies, whatever the circumstances. A hole opens up in the world, and we need to pay the proper respects. If we don't, the hole will never be filled in again.

Let the world move along as it pleased. If it had any business with him, it would be sure to tell him.

If a person remains tense for a long time he might not notice it himself, but it’s like his nerves are a piece of rubber that has been stretched out. It’s hard to go back to the original shape.

Either I'm funny or the world's funny. I don't know which. The bottle and lid don't fit. It could be the bottle's fault or the lid's fault. In either case, there's no denying that the fit is bad.

To be able to grasp something of value, sometimes you have to perform seemingly inefficient acts.

Still, in the end, we all die just the same.

Even if you don't acknowledge it, people die, and guys sleep with girls. That's just how it is.

Who can really distinguish between the sea and what's reflected in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness?

Passion can’t sustain itself forever.

But I found that the longer you teach, the more you feel like a total stranger to yourself

My arm was not what she needed, but the arm of someone else. My warmth was not what she needed, but the warmth of someone else.

It's good when food tastes good, it's kind of like proof you're alive.

The good thing about writing book is that you can dream while you are awake.

Autumn finally arrived. And when it did, I came to a decision. Something had to give: I couldn't keep on living like this.

Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o'clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm a novelist right now. There is no definite career reason why I became a writer. Something happened, and I became a writer. And now I'm a successful writer.

So this was how secrets got started, I thought to myself. People constructed them little by little.

Some things, you know, if you say them, it makes them not true?

If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you

Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that.

Memory is like fiction; or else it's fiction that's like memory.

It's true though: time moves in its own special way in the middle of the night," the bartender says, loudly striking a book match and lighting a cigarette. "You can't fight it.

If you really want to know what's happening here and now, you've got to use your own eyes and your own judgment.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

I could have been a cult writer if I'd kept writing surrealistic novels. But I wanted to break into the mainstream, so I had to prove that I could write a realistic book.

I just wanted to write something about running, but I realized that to write about my running is to write about my writing. It's a parallel thing in me.

When I'm running I don't have to talk to anybody and don't have to listen to anybody. This is a part of my day I can't do without.

[...] Shimamoto had her own little world within her. A world that was for her alone, one I could not enter.

The heavy smell of flower petals stroked the walls of my lungs.

By then running had entered the realm of the metaphysical. First there came the action of running, and accompanying it there was this entity known as me. I run; therefore I am.

Somewhere in his body--perhaps in the marrow of his bones--he would continue to feel her absence.

We knew exactly what we wanted in each other. And even so, it ended. One day it stopped, as if the film simply slipped off the reel.

If I used being busy as an excuse not to run, I'd never run again. I have only a few reasons to keep on running, and a truckload of them to quit.

she was beautiful and seemingly quite intelligent, what with her pentameter search system. There wasn't a reason in the world not to find her appealing.

I'm a writer. I don't support any war. That's my principle.

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

"I believe you," she whispers after a moment. "Please find my mind."