Haruki Murakami Quotes

I'm a coward when it comes to matters of the heart. That is my fatal flaw.

In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality.

Numbers aren’t the important thing … what matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. When you do that, it is always the first time and the last.

That’s how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.

I realize full well how hard it must be to go on living alone in a place from which someone has left you, but there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.

In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment.

In the world we live in, what we know and what we don't know are like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion.

The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.

I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.

It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.

You are a beautiful person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But you seem always to be dragging your heart along the ground. From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value.

Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.

Genius or fool, you don't live in the world alone. You can hide underground or you can build a wall around yourself, but somebody's going to come along and screw up the works.

So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year.

Watanabe: Wow, and did your search pay off?

M: That's the hard part. I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough.

I'm a very ordinary human being; I just happen to like reading books.