Haruki Murakami quotes
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Haruki Murakami
Birthdate: 12. January 1949
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies outside his native country. The critical acclaim for his fiction and non-fiction has led to numerous awards, in Japan and internationally, including the World Fantasy Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award . His oeuvre received, for example, the Franz Kafka Prize and the Jerusalem Prize .
Murakami's most notable works include A Wild Sheep Chase , Norwegian Wood , The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle , Kafka on the Shore , and 1Q84 . He has also translated into Japanese English works by writers ranging from Raymond Carver to J. D. Salinger. His fiction, still criticized by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, was influenced by Western writers from Chandler to Vonnegut by way of Brautigan. It is frequently surrealistic and melancholic or fatalistic, marked by a Kafkaesque rendition of the "recurrent themes of alienation and loneliness" he weaves into his narratives. He is also considered an important figure in postmodern literature. Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his works and achievements.
Photo: Galoren.com, Own work / CC BY-SA 4.0
Works
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami
Sputnik Sweetheart
Haruki Murakami
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Haruki Murakami
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Haruki Murakami
Dance Dance Dance
Haruki Murakami
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Haruki Murakami
South of the Border, West of the Sun
Haruki Murakami
After Dark
Haruki Murakami
A Wild Sheep Chase
Haruki Murakami
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Haruki Murakami
The Elephant Vanishes
Haruki Murakami
The Strange Library
Haruki Murakami
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
Haruki MurakamiQuotes Haruki Murakami
„Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.“
— Haruki Murakami, book Kafka on the Shore
Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter One
„two people can sleep in the same bed and still be alone when they close their eyes“
— Haruki Murakami, book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
„Numbers aren’t the important thing … what matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. When you do that, it is always the first time and the last.“
— Haruki Murakami, book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
The Kidney-shaped Stone that Moves Every Day (translated by Jay Rubin)
Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
„Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn't control you--you should control them.“
Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories
„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, in fact, 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.“
— Haruki Murakami, book Kafka on the Shore
Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)
Context: And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. 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, in fact, 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.
Chapter One
„What happens when people open their hearts?"
"They get better.“
— Haruki Murakami, book Norwegian Wood
Source: Norwegian Wood
„When you are used to the kind of life -of never getting anything you want- you stop knowing what it is you want.“
— Haruki Murakami, book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
„But knowing what I don’t want to do doesn’t help me figure out what I do want to do. I could do just about anything if somebody made me. But I don’t have an image of the one thing I really want to do. That’s my problem now. I can’t find the image.“
— Haruki Murakami, book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
„History cannot be erased or altered. Because that would mean killing yourself.“
Source: 色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年
„She was, if anything, on the plain side, at least not the type to attract men wherever she went. But there was something in her face that was meant for me alone. Everytime we met, I took a good look at her. And loved what I saw.“
— Haruki Murakami, book South of the Border, West of the Sun
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun
„After all this, I won't start to hate you.“
— Haruki Murakami, book Sputnik Sweetheart
Source: Sputnik Sweetheart
„Every once in a while she'll get worked up and cry like that. But that's ok. She's letting her feelings out. The scary thing is not being able to do that. Then your feelings build up and harden and die inside. That's when you're in big trouble.“
— Haruki Murakami, book Norwegian Wood
Source: Norwegian Wood
„A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do.“
— Haruki Murakami, book Norwegian Wood
Source: Norwegian Wood
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