|
aefb56e
|
I find myself thinking about my ongoing existence as a human being and the path that lies ahead of me. Though of course these thoughts lead to but one place - death.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
994ad98
|
I wish there was a machine that could accurately measure sadness, and display it in numbers that you could record. And it would be great if that machine could fit in the palm of your hand. I think of this every time I measure the air in my tires.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
4ffdb37
|
Someone once said that nothing costs more and yields less benefit than revenge," Aomame said. "Winston Churchill. As I recall it, though, he was making excuses for the British Empire's budget deficits. It has no moral significance."
|
|
revenge
murakami
morals
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
724271b
|
Can I be honest with you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? I mean, really, really, really honest? Sometimes I get sooo scared! I'll wake up in the middle of the night all alone, hundreds of miles away from anybody, and it's pitch dark, and I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen to me in the future, and I get so scared I want to scream. Does that happen to you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? When it happens, I try to remind myself that I am connected to other..
|
|
loneliness
scared
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
c271779
|
But it has finally hit me: she is neither a concept nor a symbol nor a metaphor. She actually exists: she has warm flesh and a spirit that moves. I never should have lost sight of that warmth and that movement.
|
|
love
iq84
murakami
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
22abd6b
|
I want to write stories that are different from the ones I've written so far, Junpei thought: I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love. But right now I have to stay here and keep watch over this woman and this girl. I will never let anyone-not anyone-try to put them into that crazy box- not even if the sky should fall or the earth crack open with a roar.
|
|
love
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
942c38d
|
It's basically the same in all periods of societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.' 'And those troubling things are all you /can/ think about when you're one of the few.' 'That's about the size of it,' she said mournfully. 'But maybe, if you're in a situation like that, you learn to think for yourself.' 'Yes, but maybe what you end up thinking for yourself /about/ is all those troublin..
|
|
social-commentary
conversation
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
80ac715
|
Wherever there's hope there's a trial. You're exactly right. Absolutely. Hope, however, is limited, and generally abstract, while there are countless trials, and they tend to be concrete. That is also something I had to learn on my own.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
360de3c
|
Some people can work their butts off and never get what they're aiming for while others can get it without any effort at all.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
46c8317
|
As usual, Junko thought about Jack London's 'To Build a Fire.' It was the story of a man traveling alone through the snowy Alaskan interior and his attempts to light a fire. He would freeze to death unless he could make it catch. The sun was going down. Junko hadn't read much fiction, but that one short story she had read again and again, ever since her teacher had assigned it as an essay topic during summer vacation of her first year in hi..
|
|
landscape-with-flatiron
jack-london
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
df6a105
|
Tolstoy's famous line, all happiness is alike, but each pain is painful in its own way.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
86577ed
|
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.
|
|
weirdos
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
59582eb
|
We returned to the hotel and had intercourse. I like that word . It poses only a limited range of possibilities.
|
|
sex
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
e507ac8
|
The passage of time will usually extract the venom of most things and render them harmless
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
cf2c00a
|
Pero, en este mundo, nada hay tan cruel como la desolacion de no desear nada.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
aafb21c
|
I tell lies sometimes. The last time I lied was a year ago. I absolutely detest lying. You could say that lying and silence are the two greatest sins of present day society. Actually, I lie a lot, and I'm always clamming up.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
6559225
|
As Duke Ellington once said, "There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind." In that sense, jazz and classical music are fundamentally the same. The pure joy one experiences listening to "good" music transcends questions of genre."
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
9602a49
|
There are all kinds of things we have to deal with in life," Eri finally said. "And one thing always seems to connect with another. You try to solve one problem, only to find that another one you hadn't anticipated arises instead. It's not that easy to get free of them."
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
7a7af47
|
Reality was one step out of line, a cardigan with the buttons done up wrong.
|
|
humor
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
bb2f16c
|
You mean, if you knew me better, you'd force stuff on me like everybody else? Toru: It's possible," I said. "That's how people live in the real world: forcing stuff on each other. Midori: You wouldn't do that. I can tell. I'm an expert when it comes to forcing stuff and having stuff forced on you. You're just not that type. That's why I can relax with you. Do you have any idea how many people there are in the world who like to force stuff o..
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
60a64a4
|
The Earth, after all, doesn't creak and groan its way around the sun just so human beings can have a good time and a bit of a laugh.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
fe0d6f5
|
Those five fingers and that palm were like a display case crammed full of everything I wanted to know--and everything I had to know. By taking my hand, she showed me what these things were. That within the real world, a place like this existed. In the space of those ten seconds I became I tiny bird, fluttering in the air, the wind rushing by. From high in the sky I could see a scene far away. It was so far off I couldn't make it out clearly..
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
6d92c5b
|
Sometimes when I think of life, I feel like a piece of driftwood washed up on shore.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
73d9242
|
Once you make up your mind to get rid of something, there's very little you can't discard. No - not very little. Once you put your mind to it, there's nothing you can't get rid of. And once you start tossing things out, you find yourself wanting to get rid of everything. It's as if you'd gambled away almost all your money and decided, What the hell, I'll bet what's left. Too much trouble to cling to the rest
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
419526d
|
Mick Jagger once boasted that 'Satisfaction' But now he's over sixty and still singing 'Satisfaction'. Some people might find this funny, but not me. When he was young, Mick Jagger couldn't imagine himself at forty-five. When I was young, I was the same. Can I laugh at Mick Jagger? No way. I just happen not to be a young rock singer. Nobody remembers what stupid things I might have said back then, so they're not about to quote them back a..
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
ae9e9cf
|
Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That's it. That's my heart.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
dee7756
|
A question. So what are people supposed to do if they want to avoid a collision (thud!) but still lie in the field, enjoying the clouds drifting by, listening to the grass grow--not thinking, in other words? Sound hard? Not at all. Logically, it's easy. C'est simple. 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. In dreams you don't need to make any distin..
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
6e68a13
|
The most dangerous creature here would have to be me. So maybe I'm just scared of my own shadow.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
212f5de
|
If you really want to know what's happening here and now, you've got to use your own eyes and your own judgment.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
2c29313
|
Sometimes, I imagine how great it would be if we could live our lives without bothering other people.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
63d0e7b
|
A certain kind of shittiness, a certain kind of stagnation, a certain kind of darkness, goes on propagating itself by its own power in its own self-contained cycle. And once it passes a certain point, no one can stop it-even if the person himself wants to stop it.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
272cd7e
|
A poet might die at twenty-one, a revolutionary or a rock star at twenty four. But after that you assume everything's going to be all right. you've made it past Dead Man's Curve and you're out of the tunnel, cruising straight for your destination down a six lane highway whether you want it or not.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
c81c6a1
|
She's always polite and kind, but her words lack the kind of curiosity and excitement you'd normally expect. Her true feelings- assuming such things exist- remain hidden away. Except for when a practical sort of decision has to be made, she never gives her personal opinion about anything. She seldom talks about herself, instead letting others talk, nodding warmly as she listens. But most people start to feel vaguely uneasy when talking with..
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
e0fcfe1
|
They take the circuits out of people's brains that make it possible for them to think for themselves. Their world is like the one that George Orwell depicted in his novel. I'm sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that kind of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don't have to think about difficult things, just shut up and do what your superiors tell you to do.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
07a0b83
|
My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. It's like I was raising chickens inside me. The chickens lay eggs and the eggs hatch into other chickens, which then lay eggs. Is this any way to live a life? What with all these faults I've got going, I have to wonder. Sure, I get by. But in the end, that's not the question, is it?
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
cdb8a41
|
When I look back at myself at age twenty, what I remember most is being alone and lonely. I had no girlfriend to warm my body or my soul, no friends I could open up to. No clue what I should do every day, no vision for the future. For the most part, I remained hidden away, deep within myself. Sometimes, I'd go a week without talking to anybody.
|
|
loneliness
past
haruki-murakami
i
remembrance
lonely
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
f383c59
|
Flaws in oneself open you up to others with flaws.
|
|
hard-boiled-wonderland
haruki-murakami
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
6bda802
|
It might be a little silly for someone getting to be my age to put this into words, but I just want to make sure I get the facts down clearly : I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two everyday running alone, not speaking to anyone as well as four of five hours at my desk, to be neither difficult or boring.
|
|
personality
life
personal
lifestyle
personalities
life-philosophy
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
c63f7bd
|
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."
|
|
norwegian-wood
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
ce81d69
|
If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. That's the world of hicks and slobs. Real people would be ashamed of themselves doing that.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
7bee142
|
In real life things don't go so smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
fdceaef
|
People with dark hearts have dark dreams. Those whose hearts are even darker can't dream at all.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
d0a9f1a
|
Never being constrained, thinking about things freely--that's what you're hoping for?" "Exactly." "But it seems to me that thinking about things freely can't be easy." "It means leaving behind your physical body. Leaving the cage of your physical flesh, breaking free of the chains, and letting pure logic soar free. Giving a natural life to logic. That's the core of free thought." "It doesn't sound easy." Haida shook his head. "No, depending..
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
837e293
|
When the time comes, everybody's got to end up where they belong. Only me, I didn't have a place to call my own. It's like musical chairs.
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami |