Quotes by Haruki Murakami

I know exactly what Im doing, but I just cant stop. Thats my greatest weakness.

I always felt as if Id been handed a cardboard box crammed full of monkeys. Id take the monkeys out of the box one at a time, carefully brush off the dust, give them a pat on the bottom, and send them scurrying off into the fields. I never knew where they went from there.

When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. Thats what I think. Its just a form of sincerity.

In the spring of her twenty-second year, Sumire fell in love for the first time in her life. An intense love, a veritable tornado sweeping across the plains—flattening everything in its path, tossing things up in the air, ripping them to shreds, crushing them to bits. The tornado’s intensity doesn’t abate for a second as it blasts across the ocean, laying waste to Angkor Wat, incinerating an Indian jungle, tigers and everything, transforming itself into a Persian desert sandstorm, burying an exotic fortress city under a sea of sand. In short, a love of truly monumental proportions. The person she fell in love with happened to be 17 years older than Sumire. And was married. And, I should add, was a woman. This is where it all began, and where it all ended. Almost.

Well, the death of the body is the flight of the arrow. Its makin a straight line for the brain. No dodgin it not for anyone. People havet die, the body hast fall. Time is hurlin that arrow forward. And yet, like I was sayin thought goes on subdividin that time for ever and ever. The paradox becomes real. The arrow never hits.In other words, immortality.

That amazing time in our lives is gone, and will never return. All the beautiful possibilities we had then have been swallowed up in the flow of time.

One guy yelled at me, You stupid bitch, how do you live like that with nothing in your brain? Well, that did it. I wasnt going to put up with that. Ok, Im not so smart. Im working class. But its the working class that keeps the world running, and its the working classes that get exploited. What kind of revolution is it that just throws out big words that working-class people cant understand? What kind of crap social revolution is that? I mean, Id like to make the world a better place, too. If somebodys really being exploited, weve got to put a stop to it. Thats what I believe, and thats why I ask questions. Am I right, or what?

Every person has their own colour.

The second whiskey is always my favorite. From the third on, it no longer has any taste. Its just something to pour into your stomach.

Of course, reading novels was just another form of escape. As soon as he closed their pages he had to come back to the real world. But at some point Tengo noticed that returning to reality from the world of a novel was not as devastating a blow as returning from the world of mathematics. Why should that have been? After much deep thought, he reached a conclusion. No matter how clear the relationships of things might become in the forest of story, there was never a clear-cut solution. That was how it differed from math. The role of a story was, in the broadest terms, to transpose a single problem into another form. Depending on the nature and direction of the problem, a solution could be suggested in the narrative. Tengo would return to the real world with that suggestion in hand. It was like a piece of paper bearing the indecipherable text of a magic spell. At times it lacked coherence and served no immediate practical purpose. But it would contain a possibility. Someday he might be able to decipher the spell. That possibility would gently warm his heart from within.

Tengos lectures took on uncommon warmth, and the students found themselves swept up in his eloquence. He taught them how to practically and effectively solve mathematical problems while simultaneously presenting a spectacular display of the romance concealed in the questions it posed. Tengo saw admiration in the eyes of several of his female students, and he realized that he was seducing these seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds through mathematics. His eloquence was a kind of intellectual foreplay. Mathematical functions stroked their backs; theorems sent warm breath into their ears.

As a teacher, Tengo pounded into his students heads how voraciously mathematics demanded logic. Here things that could not be proven had no meaning, but once you had succeeded in proving something, the worlds riddles settled into the palm of your hand like a tender oyster.

I still dont know what sort of world this is, she thought, But whatever world were in now, Im sure this is where I will stay. Where we will stay. This world must have its own threats, its own dangers, must be filled with its own type of riddles and contradictions. We may have to travel down many dark paths, leading who knows where. But thats okay. Its not a problem. Ill just have to accept it. Im not going anywhere. Come what may, this is where well remain, in this world with one moon.

From the girl who sat before me now...surged a fresh and physical life force. She was like a small animal that has popped into the world with the coming of spring. Her eyes moved like an independent organism with joy, laughter, anger, amazement, and despair. I hadnt seen a face so vivid and expressive in ages, and I enjoyed watching it live and move.

A persons last moments are an important thing. Yuou cant choose how youre born, but you can choose how you die.

A persons last moments are an important thing. You cant choose how youre born, but you can choose how to die.

Were on the same wavelength. Were connected that way, even if Im away from her.

I just got my signals crossed. First thing, I have to untangle the connections. Otherwise, I come away empty-handed. Or with someone elses hands. Or even with a missing hand.

I wrote letters in the classroom, I wrote letters at my desk at home with Seagull in my lap, I wrote letters at empty tables during my breaks at the Italian restaurant. It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.

Psychologically speaking (I’ll only wheel out the amateur psychology just this once, so bear with me), encounters that call up strong physical disgust or revulsion are often in fact projections of our own faults and weaknesses.