Haruki Murakami Quotes

“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. ”― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood”

“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. ”― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood”

“Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren't involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive--or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself.” ― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”

“In that sense, this is not a standard book of interviews. Nor is it what you might call a book of 'celebrity conversations.' What I was searching for - with increasing clarity as the sessions progressed - was something akin to the heart's natural resonance. What I did my best to hear, of course, was that resonance coming from Ozawa's heart. After all, in our conversations I was the interviewer and he was the interviewee. But what I often heard at the same time was the resonance of my own heart. At times that resonance was something I recognized as having long been a part of me, and at other times it came as a complete surprise. In other words, through a kind of sympathetic vibration that occurred during all of these conversations, I may have been simultaneously discovering Seiji Ozawa and, bit by bit, Haruki Murakami.”

“To Tengo, sexual desire was fundamentally an extension of a means of communication. And so, to look for sexual desire in a place where there was no possibility of communication seemed inappropriate to him.”

“Next she turned the gun upward and thrust the muzzle into her mouth. Now it was aimed directly at her cerebrum-- the gray labyrinth where consciousness resided.”

“Writing a novel is like having a dream.”

“If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person.”

“You lost all interest in this world. You were disappointed and discouraged, and lost interest in everything. So you abandoned your physical body. You went to a world apart and you’re living a different kind of life there. In a world that’s inside you.”

“Robbing people of their actual history is the same as robbing them of part of themselves. It’s a crime."Fuka-Eri thought about that for a moment.Tengo went on, “Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us - is rewritten - we lose the ability to sustain our true selves.”

“(When asked “Was the model for Midori (a character in Norwegian Wood) modeled after your wife?”)I showed your message to my wife. She got mad and yelled: “What would make them think I was the model for Midori?!” She told me to fix the misunderstanding immediately, so that’s why I’m writing this reply now. Please stop causing problems in my household. Thank you.”