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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

“I'm an average person. Is just that I like reading.”

Haruki Murakami

IQ84 (2009-2010)
Variant: I'm a very ordinary human being; I just happen to like reading books.
Source: 1Q84 BOOK 1

“If only I could fall
sound asleep and wake up in my old reality!”

Haruki Murakami book After Dark

Source: After Dark

“Living like an empty shell is not really living, no matter how many years it may go on. The heart and flesh of an empty shell give birth to nothing more than the life of an empty shell.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“One of these days they'll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982)
Context: I watched an old American submarine movie on television. The creaking plot had the captain and first officer constantly at each other’s throat. The submarine was a fossil, and one guy had claustrophobia. But all that didn’t stop everything from working out well in the end. It was an everything-works-out-in-the-end-so-maybe-war’s-not-so-bad-after-all sort of film. One of these days they’ll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end.

“I think of rivers, of tides. Forests and water gushing out. Rain and lightning. Rocks and shadows. All of these are in me.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“Time is too conceptual. Not that it stops us from filling it in. So much so, we can't even tell whether our experiences belong to time or to the world of physical things.”

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

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“A person’s destiny is something you look back at afterwards, not something to be known in advance.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“What I feel for her is a wholly different emotion. It stands and walks on its own, living and breathing and throbbing and shaking me to the roots of my being.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“That’s all I think about these days. Must be because I have so much time to kill every day. When you don’t have anything to do, your thoughts get really, really far out-so far out
you can’t follow them all the way to the end.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“She was the kind of person who took care of things by herself. She’d never ask anybody for advice or help. It wasn’t a matter of pride, I think. She just did what seemed natural to her.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“People want to be bowled over by something special. Nine times out of ten you might strike out, but that tenth time, that peak experience, is what people want. That's what can move the world. That's art.”

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

Variant: People want to be bowled over by something special. Nine times out of ten you can forget, but that tenth time, that peak experience, is what people want. That's what can move the world. That's art.
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

“People need routines. It's like a theme in music. But it also restricts your thoughts and actions and limits your freedom. It structures your priorities and in some cases distorts your logic.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“He felt as if his heart had dried up. I needed her he thought. I needed someone like her to fill the void inside me. But I wasn’t able to fill the void inside her. Until the bitter end, the emptiness inside her was hers alone.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“I’m not very good at giving anyone a clear no.”

Haruki Murakami book The Strange Library

Source: The Strange Library

“It's not as if our lives are simply divided into light and dark. There's a shadowy middle ground. Recognizing and understanding the shadows is what a healthy intelligence does.”

Haruki Murakami book After Dark

Source: After Dark

“And you’ll return to real life. You need to live it to the fullest. No matter how shallow and dull things might get, this life is worth living. I guarantee it.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“A girl doesn't always want to go out, you know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Sometimes she feels like being nasty--like, if the guy's gonna wait, let him really wait.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“You throw a stone into a deep pond. Splash. The sound is big, and it reverberates throughout the surrounding area. What comes out of the pond after that? All we can do is stare at the pond, holding our breath.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“Listen up—there’s no war that will end all wars,’ Crow tells me. ‘War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“Sometimes I feel as if I'm racing with my own shadow, Korogi says. But that's one thing I'll never be able to outrun. Nobody can shake off their own shadow.”

Haruki Murakami book After Dark

Source: After Dark

“At the same time, my anxiety had turned into an anxiety quite lacking in anxiousness. And any anxiety that is not especially anxious is, in the end, an anxiety hardly worth mentioning.”

Haruki Murakami book The Strange Library

Source: The Strange Library

“What we needed were not words and promises but the steady accumulation of small realities.”

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

Variant: What we needed were not words and promises but a steady accumulation of small realities.
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

“You know what it’s like when you’re trying to fall asleep and it only makes you more wide awake?”

Haruki Murakami book The Elephant Vanishes

Source: The Elephant Vanishes

“I don't really know if it's the right thing to do, making new life. Kids grow up, generations take their place. What does it all come to? More hills bulldozed and more ocean fronts filled in? Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it?”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 15, The Song Is Over

“I’m me, and at the same time not me. That’s what it felt like. A very still, quiet feeling.”

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

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“It is the same with anything - you have to learn through your own experience, paying your own way. You can't learn it from a book.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

“Ordinary imperfect people, always choose similarly imperfect people as friends.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

“Her voice was like a line from an old black-and-white Jean-Luc Godard movie, filtering in just beyond the frame of my consciousness.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

“I was feeling lonely without her, but the fact that I could feel lonely at all was consolation. Loneliness wasn't such a bad feeling. It was like the stillness of the pin oak after the little birds had flown off.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood (1987)

“The truth sometimes reminds me of a city buried in sand. As time passes, the sand piles up even thicker, and occasionally it's blown away and what's below is revealed.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“To be able to talk to your heart’s content about a book you like with someone who feels the same way about it is one of the greatest joys that life can offer.”

Haruki Murakami

“I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone”

Haruki Murakami

Source: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

“Sometimes when I'm with you, I remember things I lost when I was your age. Like I remember the sound of the rain and the smell of the wind.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

“Strong and independent? I’m neither. I’m just being pushed along by reality, whether I like it or not.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“Shakespeare said it best,' Tamaru said quietly as he gazed at that lumpish, misshapen head. 'Something along these lines: if we die today, we do not have to die tomorrow, so let us look to the best in each other”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“Things may look different to you than they did before. I've had that experience myself. But don't let appearances fool you. There's only one reality.”

Haruki Murakami

Source: 1Q84 BOOK 1

“Looking at the ocean makes me miss people, and hanging out with people makes me miss the ocean.”

Haruki Murakami

Source: Wind/Pinball: Two Novels

“You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.” Sara looked directly into his eyes. “If nothing else, you need to remember that. You can’t erase history, or change it. It would be like destroying yourself.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“Can'ttrustpeople. Won'tdoanygood. They'llkillyoueverytime. They'llkilleachother. They'llkilleveryone.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

“There’s nothing wrong with not looking like something. It just means you don’t fit the stereotype yet.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“Things that have form will all disappear. But certain feelings stay with us forever.”

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

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

“That's gotta be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend, and leaving them that way.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

“Colors shone with exceptional clarity in the rain. The ground was a deep black, the pine branches a brilliant green, the people wrapped in yellow looking like special spirits that were allowed to wander over the earth on rainy mornings only.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood