Quotes by Haruki Murakami

But still, Ayumi said, it seems to me that this world has a serious shortage of both logic and kindness.You may be right, Aomame said, But its too late to trade it in for another one.

There is one thing I can say for certain: the older a person gets, the lonelier he becomes. Its true for everyone. But maybe that isnt wrong. What I mean is, in a sense our lives are nothing more than a series of stages to help us get used to loneliness. That being the case, theres no reason to complain. And besides who would be complaint to anyway? (A Walk To Kobe, Granta 124: Travel)

all I wanted was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anybodys reach. A place beyond the flow of time.

It was a different sense of isolation from what he normally felt in Japan. And not such a bad feeling, he decided. Being alone in two senses of the word was maybe like a double negation of isolation. In other words, it made perfect sense for him, a foreigner, to feel isolated here. The thought calmed him. He was in exactly the right place.

No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself. It’s like your shadow. It follows you everywhere. -Komura

The world follows its own course. Each possesses his own thoughts, each treads his own path. So it is with your mother, and so it is with your starling. As it is with everyone. The world follows its own course.

I stayed in the town until early evening, and when the sun began to sink, my heart did too. This is your last chance to go back, I told myself. Once it gets completely dark, you might never be able to leave here. I went home on the same buses that had brought me there. I arrived before seven, and no one noticed that I had run away.

I stayed in the town until earlyevening, and when the sun began to sink, my heart did too. This is your last chance to goback, I told myself. Once it gets completely dark, you might never be able to leave here. Iwent home on the same buses that had brought me there. I arrived before seven, and no onenoticed that I had run away.

I am afraid to die, though, I whispered to myself. These turned out to be my last words. They were not very impressive words, but it was too late to change them.

People think of all kinds of things at three in the morning. We all do. Thats why we each have to figure out our own way of fighting it off.

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 hadnt anticipated arises instead. Its not that easy to get free of them. Thats true for you - and for me, too.

its a fine moon, she repeated

Looking up at [the sky], I think about the October evening world, where people must be going about their lives. Beneath that pale autumn light, they must be walking down streets, going to the store for things, preparing dinner, boarding trains for home. And they think--if they think at all--that these things are too obvious to think about, just as I used to do (or not do).

I feel as if the world is listening for my next thought. But I cant think of anything. Sorry, but I just cant think of anything.

But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four oclock in the morning.

Sometimes I feel so- I don’t know - lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when everything you’re used to has been ripped away. Like there’s no more gravity, and I’m left to drift in outer space with no idea where I’m going’Like a little lost Sputnik?’I guess so.

Loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you.

Like youre riding a train at night across some vast plain, and youcatch a glimpse of a tiny light in a window of a farmhouse. In aninstant its sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes. Butif you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you, justbarely for a few moments.

Im all alone, but Im not lonely.

The two of them on top of the freezing slide, wordlessly holding hands. Once again they were a ten-year-old boy and girl. A lonely boy, and a lonely girl. A classroom, just after school let out, at the beginning of winter. They had neither the power nor the knowledge to know what they should offer to each other, what they should be seeking. They had never, ever, been truly loved, or truly loved someone else. They had never held anyone, never been held. They had not idea, either, where this action would take them. What they entered then was a doorless room. They couldnt get out, nor could anyone else come in. The two of them didnt know it at the time, but this was the only truly complete place in the entire world. Totally isolated, yet the one place not tainted with loneliness.