Haruki Murakami Quotes - Page 43

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• It's a quiet place, so people talk quietly," said Naoko. She made a neat pile of fish bones at the edge of her plate and dabbed at her mouth with a handkerchief. "There's no need to raise your voice here. You don't have to convince anybody of anything, and you don't have to attract anyone's attention.

  Haruki Murakami

  Voice, People, Needs

  4 Copy quote

• I found a Bill Evans record in the bookcase and was listening to it while drying my hair when I realized that it was the record I had played in Naoko's room on the night of her birthday, the night she cried and I took her in my arms. That had happened only six months earlier, but it felt like something from a much remoter past. Maybe it felt that way because I had thought about it so often-too often, to the point where it had distorted my sense of time.

  Haruki Murakami

  Past, Night, Hair

  4 Copy quote

• When it's raining like this," said Naoko, "it feels as if we're the only ones in the world. I wish it would just keep raining so the three of us could stay together.

  Haruki Murakami

  Rain, Wish, Together

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “Norwegian Wood”, p.213, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven't answered me." I probably still haven't completely adapted to the world," I said after giving it some thought. "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." Midori rested an elbow on the bar and looked at me. "There was something like that in a Jim Morrison song, I'm pretty sure." People are strange when you're a stranger.

  Haruki Murakami

  Song, Real, People

  4 Copy quote

• I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. But it was not until much later that I was able to get any real sleep. In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment.

  Haruki Murakami

  Real, Sleep, Eye

  4 Copy quote

• I wrote a huge number of letters that spring: one a week to Naoko, several to Reiko, and several more to Midori. I wrote letters in the classroom, I wrote letters at my desk at home with Seagull in my lap, I wrote letters at empty tables during my breaks at the Italian restaurant. It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.

  Haruki Murakami

  Spring, Home, Writing

  17 Copy quote

• Where I went in my travels, it's impossible for me to recall. I remember the sights and sounds and smells clearly enough, but the names of the towns are gone, as well as any sense of the order in which I traveled from place to place.

  Haruki Murakami

  Sight, Order, Names

  4 Copy quote

• Sitting on the floor, I'd replay the past in my head. Funny, that's all I did, day after day after day for half a year, and I never tired of it. What I'd been through seemed so vast, with so many facets. Vast, but real, very real, which was why the experience persisted in towering before me, like a monument lit up at night. And the thing was, it was a monument to me.

  Haruki Murakami

  Real, Tired, Past

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Nov 12, 2014

  4 Copy quote

• Thanks to the long days of rain, the blades of grass glowed with a deep-green luster, and they gave off the smell of wildness unique to things that sink their roots into the earth.

  Haruki Murakami

  Rain, Unique, Roots

  "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1997.

  4 Copy quote

• It might not be perfect, but the fundamental stance I adopted with regard to my home was to accept it, problems and all, because it was something I myself had chosen. If it had problems, these were almost certainly problems that had originated within me.

  Haruki Murakami

  Home, Perfect, Fundamentals

  "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1997.

  4 Copy quote

• The others in the dorm thought I wanted to be a writer, because I was always alone with a book, but I had no such ambition. There was nothing I wanted to be.

  Haruki Murakami

  Book, Ambition, Dorms

  4 Copy quote

• A life without pain: it was the very thing I had dreamed of for years, but now that I had it, I couldn’t find a place for myself within it. A clear gap separated me from it, and this caused me great confusion. I felt as if I were not anchored to this world - this world that I had hated so passionately until then; this world that I had continued to revile for its unfairness and injustice; this world where at least I knew who I was. Now the world ceased to be the world, and I had ceased to be me.

  Haruki Murakami

  Pain, Years, Confusion

  "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle". Book by Haruki Murakami, books.google.ru. October 10, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• I laughed. “You’re too young to be so … pessimistic,” I said, using the English word. “Pessi-what?” “Pessimistic. It means looking only at the dark side of things.” “Pessimistic … pessimistic …” She repeated the English to herself over and over, and then she looked up at me with a fierce glare. “I’m only sixteen,” she said, “and I don’t know much about the world, but I do know one thing for sure. If I’m pessimistic, then the adults in this world who are not pessimistic are a bunch of idiots.

  Haruki Murakami

  Mean, Dark, Adults

  5 Copy quote

• Like you're riding a train at night across some vast plain, and you catch a glimpse of a tiny light in a window of a farmhouse. In an instant it's sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes. But if you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you, just barely for a few moments.

  Haruki Murakami

  Eye, Night, Light

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jan 19, 2016

  4 Copy quote

• All you have to do is wait,” I explained. “Sit tight and wait for the right moment. Not try to change anything by force, just watch the drift of things. Make an effort to cast a fair eye on everything. If you do that, you just naturally know what to do. But everyone’s always too busy. They’re too talented, their schedules are too full. They’re too interested in themselves to think about what’s fair.

  Haruki Murakami

  Change, Patience, Eye

  5 Copy quote

• Let me tell you something, Mari. The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you. And once that happens, you've had it: things'll never be the same. All you can do is go on, living alone down there in the darkness.

  Haruki Murakami

  Darkness, Looks, Goes On

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “After Dark”, p.158, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• "Dance," said the Sheep Man. "Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougotta dance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou're tired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, okay? Justdon'tletyourfeetstop."

  Haruki Murakami

  Tired, Men, Sheep

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “Dance Dance Dance”, p.86, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• The whole terrible fight occured in the area of imagination. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there, that we experience our victories and defeats.

  Haruki Murakami

  Fighting, Victory And Defeat, Imagination

  6 Copy quote

• I love pop culture -- the Rolling Stones, the Doors, David Lynch, things like that. That's why I said I don't like elitism.

  Haruki Murakami

  Doors, Rolling, Culture

  4 Copy quote

• Her smile steps offstage for a moment, then does an encore, all while I'm dealing with my blushing face.

  Haruki Murakami

  Doe, Faces, Steps

  12 Copy quote

• Wasn't he the one who said you shouldn't trust anybody who calls himself an ordinar man? - Naoko

  Haruki Murakami

  Men, Said

  4 Copy quote

• So what’s wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?

  Haruki Murakami

  Guy, Trying, World

  6 Copy quote

• How many Sundays - how many hundreds of Sundays like this - lay ahead of me? “Quiet, peaceful, and lonely,” I said aloud to myself. On Sundays, I didn't wind my spring.

  Haruki Murakami

  Lonely, Spring, Sunday

  "Norwegian Wood". Book by Haruki Murakami, 2000.

  4 Copy quote

• sometimes i'd wake up at two or three in the morning and not be able to fall asleep again. i'd get out of bed, go to the kitchen, and pour myself a whiskey. glass in hand, i'd look down at the darkened cemetary across teh way and the headlights of the cars on the road. the moments of time linking night and dawn were long and dark. if i could cry, it might make things easier. but what would i cry over? i was too self centered to cry for other people, too old to cry for myself.

  Haruki Murakami

  Morning, Fall, Dark

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Feb 13, 2012

  4 Copy quote

• Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else. I'd move to Casablanca, open a bar, and I'd meet Ingrid Bergman. Or more realistically - whether actually more realistic or not - I'd tune in on a better life, something more suited to my true self. Toward that end, I had to undergo training. I read The Greening of America, and I saw Easy Rider three times. But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.

  Haruki Murakami

  Moving, America, Self

  "Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World". Book by Haruki Murakami, September 1991.

  12 Copy quote

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