Quotes by Haruki Murakami

People do change. And no matter how close we once were, and how much we opened up to each other, maybe neither if us know anything substantial about the other.

Im the scratchy stuff on the side of the matchbox. But thats fine with me. I dont mind at all. Better to be a first-class matchbox than a second-class match.

People die all the time. Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely. Its too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands after the person dies. Personally, I dont buy it.Yuki leaned against the car door. But thats real hard, isnt it? she said.Real hard, I said. But its worth trying for.

The conclusion of things is the good. The good is, in other words, the conclusion at which all things arrive. Lets leave doubt for tomorrow, Komatsu said. That is the point.

Nobody chooses to evolve. Its like floods and avalanches and earthquakes. You never know whats happening until they hit, then its too late.

Everybody thinks Im this delicate little girl.

I love you, I said to her. From the bottom of my heart. I dont ever want to let you go again. But theres nothing I can do. I cant make a move.Because of her?I nodded.

Closing your eyes isnt going to change anything. Nothings going to disappear just because you cant see whats going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes.

So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent.

Our faces were no more than ten inches apart, but she was light years away from me.

Violence does not always take visible form, and not all wounds gush blood.

It may well be that we can never fully adapt to our own deformities. Unable tofind a place inside ourselves for the very real pain and suffering that these deformities cause, we come here to get away from such things. As long as we are here, we can get by without hurting others or being hurt by them because we know that we are deformed. Thats whatdistinguishes us from the outside world: most people go about their lives unconscious of their deformities, while in this little world of ours the deformities themselves are a precondition. Just as Indians wearfeathers on their heads to show what tribe they belong to, we wear our deformities in the open. And we live quietly so as not to hurt one another.

Thats what we all do : endlessly take the long way around.

At the same time that I am the content of a relation, I am also that which does the relating.

All kinds of things are happening to me. I begin. ,,Some I choose, some I didnt. I dont know how to tell one from the other any more. What I mean is, it feels like everythings been decided in advance - that Im following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesnt matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose my sense od who I am. Its as if my identitys an orbit that Ive strayed far away from, and that really hurts. But more than that, it scares me. Just thinking about it makes me flinch.Oshima gazes deep into m eyes. Listen, Kafka. What you are experiencing now is the motif od many Greek tragedies. Man does not chose fate. Fate chooses man. That is the basic world view of Greek drama. And the sense od tragedy - according to Aristotle - somes, ironically enough, not drom the protagonists weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I am getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Sophocles Oedipus Rex being a Great example. Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of lazines or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results.

Certain kinds of information are like smoke: they work their way into peoples eyes and minds whether sought out or not, and with no regard to personal preference.

We were young, and we had no need for prophecies. Just living was itself an act of prophecy.

Hey, you know that thing Dostoyevesky wrote on gambling? Its like that. When youre surrounded by endless possibilities, one of the hardest things you can do is pass them up.

Anyway, I forgot all about him once I graduated. So quickly and easily, it was weird. What was it about him that had made the seventeen-year-old me fall so hard? Try as I might, I couldn’t remember. Life is strange, isn’t it? You can be totally entranced by something one minute, be willing to sacrifice everything to make it yours, but then a little time passes, or your perspective changes a bit, and all of a sudden you’re shocked at how its glow has faded. What was I looking at? you wonder. So that’s the story of my ‘breaking-and-entering’ period.

It seemed unreasonable, unfair, that a woman so young and beautiful should be so exhausted. Of course, it was neither unreasonable nor unfair. Exhaustion pays no mind to age and beauty. Like rain and earthquakes and hail and floods.