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Haruki Murakami Quotes
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655 Quotes on Love, Loneliness, and the Complexities of Human Emotions

Discover the profound and thought-provoking words of Haruki Murakami, one of the most renowned authors of our time. Delve into his quotes on love, loneliness, and the complexities of human emotions. Let his words transport you to a world where every sentence is a masterpiece.

Haruki Murakami is a highly acclaimed Japanese writer, known for his bestselling novels, essays, and short stories. His works have been translated into 50 languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Notable accolades include the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, and the Franz Kafka Prize. Murakami's diverse range of writing spans genres such as science fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction. He often incorporates magical realism elements into his narratives.

Born in Kyoto during the post-World War II era, Murakami grew up in Nishinomiya, Ashiya, and Kobe. Influenced by Western culture from a young age, he developed a passion for literature and music by European and American writers. Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo where he met his wife Yoko. Before establishing himself as a writer, he owned a jazz bar called Peter Cat with his wife from 1974 to 1981. In addition to his literary pursuits, Murakami is an avid marathon runner and triathlon enthusiast.

Despite his immense popularity internationally, Murakami has faced criticism from Japan's literary establishment for being un-Japanese in style. However, he has been applauded by editors and critics worldwide for his extraordinary talent as a novelist.

✵ 12. January 1949
Haruki Murakami photo
Haruki Murakami: 655 quotes136 likes

Haruki Murakami Quotes

“ice contains no future, just the past, sealed away. As if they're alive, everything in the world is sealed up inside, clear and distinct. Ice can preserve all kinds of things that way- cleanly, clearly. That's the essence of ice, the role it plays.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

“That's the kind of death that frightens me. The shadow of death slowly, slowly eats away at the region of life, and before you know it everything's dark and you can't see, and the people around you think of you as more dead than alive.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“An empty shell. Those were the first words that sprang to mind….. Something incredibly important -.. - had disappeared from Miu for good. Leaving behind not life, but its absence”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

“Judging the mistakes of strangers is an easy thing to do - and it feels pretty good.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

“Constipation was one of the things she hated most in the world, on par with despicable men who commit domestic violence and narrow-minded religious fundamentalists.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“It’s because of you when I’m in bed in the morning that I can wind my spring and tell myself I have to live another good day.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Variant: It's because of you when I'm in bed in the morning that I can wind my spring and tell myself I have to live another good day.
Source: Norwegian Wood

“She curled up and pressed her cheek against his chest. Her ear was right above his heart. She was listening to his thoughts. "I need to know this," Aomame said. "That we're in the same world, seeing the same things.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“Maybe the only thing I can definitely say about is this: That’s life. Maybe the only thing we can do is accept it, without really knowing what’s going on.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“I've been clinging to this world like a discarded shell of an insect stuck to a branch, about to be blown off forever by a gust of wind.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“Her pupils have taken on a lonely hue, like grey clouds reflected in a calm lake.”

Haruki Murakami book After Dark

Source: After Dark

“Thanks to the long days of rain, the blades of grass glowed with a deep-green luster, and they gave off the smell of wildness unique to things that sink their roots into the earth.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“What's really important here," I whispered loudly to myself,"is not the big things other people have thought up, but the small things you, yourself have”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

“I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. But it was not until much later that I was able to get any real sleep. In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“No, I don't want your money. The world moves less by money than by what you owe people and what they owe you. I don't like to owe anybody anything, so I keep to myself as much on the lending side as I can.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“The ones with no imagination are always the quickest to justify themselves.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

“The only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“Now for a good twelve-hour sleep, I told myself. Twelve solid hours. Let birds sing, let people go to work. Somewhere out there, a volcano might blow, Israeli commandos might decimate a Palestinian village. I couldn't stop it. I was going to sleep.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter Thirteen: Frankfurt, Door, Independent Operants

“The world follows its own course. Each possesses his own thoughts, each treads his own path. So it is with your mother, and so it is with your starling. As it is with everyone. The world follows its own course.”

Haruki Murakami book The Strange Library

Source: The Strange Library

“The song is over. But the melody lingers on.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982)

“You have an interesting history. Now people can generally be classified in to two groups: the mediocre realists and the mediocre dreamers. You clearly belong to the letter. Your fate is and will always be the fate of dreamers.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 17, The Strange Man's Strange Tale

“As long as I kept my body moving I could forget about the emptiness inside.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“The years nineteen and twenty are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“Still, in the end, we all die just the same.”

Haruki Murakami book Hear the Wind Sing

Source: Hear the Wind Sing

“I don’t know, I don’t feel right unless I’ve got the sea and mountains nearby. People are mostly a product of where they were born and raised. How you think and feel’s always linked to the lay of the land, the temperature. The prevailing winds, even.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“It’s pretty thin, the wall separating healthy confidence and unhealthy Pride.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“This is what it means to live on. When granted hope, a person uses it as fuel, as a guidepost to life. It is impossible to live without hope.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows—maybe even tomorrow.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

“You are entering a phase of your life in which many different things will occur… bad things that seem good at first and good things that seem bad at first.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“My point is: in this whole wide world the only person you can depend on is you.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“The silence grew deeper, so deep that if you listened carefully you might very well catch the sound of the earth revolving on its axis.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“Things pass us by. Nobody can catch them. That's the way we live our lives.”

Haruki Murakami book Hear the Wind Sing

Variant: All things pass. None of us can manage to hold on to anything. In that way, we live our lives.
Source: Hear the Wind Sing

“It was a strange feeling, like touching a void.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“I'm the kind of person who has to totally commit to whatever I do.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“I never could stand being forced to do something I didn't want to do at a time I didn't want to do it. Whenever I was able to do something I liked to do, though, when I wanted to do it, and the way I wanted to do it, I'd give it everything I had.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“This is the extent of his knowledge of the sea: it was very big, it was salty, and fish lived there.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“You have to make an effort to always look at the good side, always think about the good things. Then you've got nothing to be afraid of. If something bad comes up, you do more thinking at that point.”

Haruki Murakami book The Elephant Vanishes

Source: The Elephant Vanishes

“Listen, every object's in flux. The Earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil-they're all fluid and in transition. They don't stay in one form or in one place forever. The whole universe is like some big FedEx box.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 30, Colonel Sanders

“The rain that fell on the city runs down the dark gutters and empties into the sea without even soaking the ground”

Haruki Murakami book Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

Source: Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

“What the world needs is a set villain that people can point at and say, “It’s all your fault!”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“Once a guy starts using a wig, he has to keep using one. It's, like, his fate. That's why wig makers make such huge profits. I hate to say it, but they're like drug dealers.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.”

Haruki Murakami book After Dark

Source: After Dark

“I'd made it back to the land of the living. No matter how boring or mediocre a world it might be, this was it.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase

“Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“Ever since that happened to me, I haven't been able to give myself to anyone in this world.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

“I may not be the most likable person in the world, but I try not to upset people.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

“Suicides? Heart attacks? The papers didn't seem interested. The world was full of ways to die, too many to cover. Newsworthy deaths had to be exceptional. Most people go unobserved.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

“[…] Shimamoto had her own little world within her. A world that was for her alone, one I could not enter.”

Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun