Haruki Murakami Quotes
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There's not much you can do about time - it just keeps on passing. But experience? Don't tell me that. I'm not proud of it, but I don't have any sexual desire. And what sort of experience can a writer have if she doesn't feel passion? It'd be like a chef without an appetite.
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As I see it, you are living with something that you keep hidden deep inside. Something heavy. I felt it from the first time I met you. You have a strong gaze, as if you have made up your mind about something. To tell you the truth, I myself carry such things around inside. Heavy things. That is how I can see it in you.
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I can never say what I want to say, it's been like this for a while now. I try to say something but all I get are wrong words - the wrong words or the exact opposite words from what I mean. I try to correct myself, and that only makes it worse. I lose track of what I was trying to say to begin with. It's like I'm split in two and playing tag with myself. One half is chasing this big, fat post. The other me has the right words, but this can't catch her.
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You can keep as quiet as you like, but one of these days somebody is going to find you.
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Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world?
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Chance encounters are what keep us going.
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I'm a coward when it comes to matters of the heart. That is my fatal flaw.
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Everyone just keeps on disappearing. Some things vanish, like they were cut away. Others fade slowly into the mist. And all that remains is a desert.
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Exhaustion pays no mind to age or beauty. Like rain and earthquakes and hail and floods.
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What’s more, you’re loads better than you think you are.” “So why is it I get to thinking that way?” I puzzled. “That’s because you’re only half-living.” she said briskly. “The other half is still untapped somewhere.
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What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real.
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The most dangerous creature here would have to be me. So maybe I'm just scared of my own shadow.
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You’re here,” I continued. “At least you look as if you’re here. But maybe you aren’t. Maybe it’s just your shadow. The real you may be someplace else. Or maybe you already disappeared, a long, long time ago. I reach out my hand to see, but you’ve hidden yourself behind a cloud of probablys. Do you think we can go on like this forever?
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I’ve had that kind of experience myself: I’m looking at a map and I see someplace that makes me think, ‘I absolutely have to go to this place, no matter what’. And most of the time, for some reason, the place is far away and hard to get to. I feel this overwhelming desire to know what kind of scenery the place has, or what people are doing there. It’s like measles - you can’t show other people exactly where the passion comes from. It’s curiosity in the purest sense. An inexplicable inspiration.
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Results aside, the ability to have complete faith in another human being is one of the finest qualities a person can possess.
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The body is not the only target of rape. Violence does not always take a visible form, and not all wounds gush blood.
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I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do. To dream, to live in the world of dreams. But it doesn’t last forever. Wakefulness always comes to take me back.
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Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn't control you--you should control them.
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For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner, by any means. I’m at an ordinary – or perhaps more like mediocre – level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.
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As long as I stared at the clock, at least the world remained in motion. Not a very consequential world, but in motion nonetheless. And as long as I knew the world was still in motion, I knew I existed. Not a very consequential existence, but an existence nonetheless. It struck me as wanting that someone should confirm his own existence only by the hands of an electric wall clock. There had to be a more cognitive means of confirmation. But try as I might, nothing less facile came to mind.
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The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.
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Each individual has their own unique color, which shines faintly around the contours of their body. Like a halo. Or a backlight. I'm able to see those colors clearly.
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An expectation was there, mixed in with so many other emotions - excitement, resignation, hesitation, confusion, fear - that would well up then wither on the vine. 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.
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It feels good to think about you when I'm warm in bed. I feel as if you're curled up there beside me, fast asleep. And I think how great it would be if it were true.