Quotes by Haruki Murakami

“Human beings are ultimately nothing but carriers-passageways- for genes. They ride us into the ground like racehorses from generation to generation. Genes dont think about what constitutes good or evil. They dont care whether we are happy or unhappy. Were just means to an end for them. The only thing they think about is what is most efficient for them.”

“I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die,” she said. “I can’t think about it. I don’t even know how I’m going to live.”

“Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when its time for them to be hurt.”

“Death leaves cans of shaving cream half-used.”

“A poet might die at twenty-one, a revolutionary or a rock star at twenty four. But after that you assume everything’s going to be all right. you’ve made it past Dead Man’s Curve and you’re out of the tunnel, cruising straight for your destination down a six lane highway whether you want it or not.”

“I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it -- to be fed so much love I couldnt take any more. Just once. ”

“I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.”

“With my eyes closed, I would touch a familiar book and draw its fragrance deep inside me. This was enough to make me happy. ”

“Suicides? Heart attacks? The papers didnt seem interested. The world was full of ways to die, too many to cover. Newsworthy deaths had to be exceptional. Most people go unobserved.”

“Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that eighteen years later I would recall it in such detail. I didnt give a damn about the scenery that day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us together, and then about myself again. It was the age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications. The scenery was the last thing on my mind.”

“People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die.”

“Life is here, death is over there. I am here, not over there.”

“Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you.”

“But hell, youve gotta work with what youve got.”

“Dont blame me. Thats evolution. Evolutions always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution.”

“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”