Haruki Murakami Quotes
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One foot in front of the other. Repeat as often as necessary to finish.
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I'm tired of living unable to love anyone. I don't have a single friend - not one. And, worst of all, I can't even love myself. Why is that? Why can't I love myself? It's because I can't love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself.
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You have to make an effort to always look at the good side, always think about the good things. Then you've got nothing to be afraid of. If something bad comes up, you do more thinking at that point.
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Far away, I could hear them lapping up my brains. Like Macbeth's witches, the three lithe cats surrounded my broken head, slurping up that thick soup inside. The tips of their rough tongues licked the soft folds of my mind. And with each lick my consciousness flickered like a flame and faded away.
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I have come to think that life is a far more limited thing than those in the midst of its maelstorm realize. That light shines into the act of life for only the briefest moment - perhaps only a matter of seconds. Once it is gone and failed to grasp its offered revelation, there is no second chance. One may have to live the rest of one's life in hopeless depth of loneliness and remorse. In that twilight world, one can no longer look forward to anything. All that such a person holds in his hands is the withered corpse of what should have been.
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I am here, alone, at the end of the world. I reach out and touch nothing.
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No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself.
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People soon get tired of things that aren't boring, but not of what is boring.
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There’s nothing wrong with not looking like something. It just means you don’t fit the stereotype yet.
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Only the dead stay seventeen forever.
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Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in flight, searching the skies for dreams.
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Maybe the only thing I can definitely say about is this: That’s life. Maybe the only thing we can do is accept it, without really knowing what’s going on.
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There are some things about myself I can’t explain to anyone. There are some things I don’t understand at all. I can’t tell what I think about things or what I’m after. I don’t know what my strengths are or what I’m supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail the whole thing gets scary. And if I get scared I can only think about myself. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I hurt people. So I’m not such a wonderful human being.
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Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die.
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The unwaking world was as hushed as a deep forest.
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Life is not like water. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route.
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Your work should be an act of love, not a marriage of convenience.
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I've translated a lot of American literature into Japanese, and I think that what makes a good translator is, above all, a feel for language and also a great affection for the work you're translating. If one of those elements is missing the translation won't be worth much.
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Our responsibility begins with our imagination.
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Like a Chinese box, the world of the novel contained smaller worlds, and inside those were yet smaller worlds. Together, these worlds made up a single universe, and the universe waited there in the book to be discovered by the reader.
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I read Naoko's letter again and again, and each time I read it I would be filled with the same unbearable sadness I used to feel whenever Naoko stared into my eyes. I had no way to deal with it, no place I could take it to or hide it away. Like the wind passing over my body, it had neither shape nor weight, nor could I wrap myself in it.
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Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time.
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Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents.
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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.