Quotes by Haruki Murakami

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.

As we go through life we gradually discover who we are, but the more we discover, the more we lose ourselves.

Some things in life are too complicated to explain in any language.

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.

Holding this soft, small living creature in my lap this way, though, and seeing how it slept with complete trust in me, I felt a warm rush in my chest. I put my hand on the cats chest and felt his heart beating. The pulse was faint and fast, but his heart, like mine, was ticking off the time allotted to his small body with all the restless earnestness of my own.

Life doesnt require ideals. It requires standards of action.

People soon get tired of things that arent boring, but not of what is boring.

Life is long, and sometimes cruel. Sometimes victims are needed. Someone has to take on that role. And human bodies are fragile, easily damaged. Cut them, and they bleed.

It seemed to me that this world has a serious shortage of both logic and kindness.

I don’t know what it means to live.

Everything has boundaries. The same holds true with thought. You shouldnt fear boundaries, but you should not be afraid of destroying them. Thats what is most important if you want to be free: respect for and exasperation with boundaries.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to sleep through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you wont be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there- to the edge of the world. Theres something you cant do unless you get there.

According to Aristophanes in Platos The Banquet, in the ancient world of legend there were three types of people.In ancient times people werent simply male or female, but one of three types : male/male, male/female or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangment and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everyone in half, right down the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing half.

Its easy to forget things you dont need anymore.

When you are used to the kind of life -of never getting anything you want- you stop knowing what it is you want.

When someone is trying very hard to get something, they dont. And when theyre running away from something as hard as they can, it usually catches up with them.

I do feel that I’ve managed to make something I could maybe call my world…over time…little by little. And when I’m inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I’m a weak person, that I bruise easily, don’t you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It’s like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere.

Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit.