Haruki Murakami: Doing

Haruki Murakami is Japanese author, novelist. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
Haruki Murakami: 1310 quotes136 likes

“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

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

“I'm tired of living unable to love anyone. I don't have a single friend - not one. And, worst of all, I can't even love myself. Why is that? Why can't I love myself? It's because I can't love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84 (2009-2010)

“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

“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

“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

“I don't care what you do to me, but I don't want you to hurt me. I've had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. That's what I think. It's just a form of sincerity.”

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

“What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“People with dark souls have nothing but dark dreams. People with really dark souls do nothing but dream.”

Haruki Murakami book Hear the Wind Sing

Source: Hear the Wind Sing

“Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, "I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Variant: I sometimes think that people's hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what's at the bottom. All you can do is guess from what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.
Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

“In everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)

“In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount.”

Haruki Murakami book After Dark

Source: After Dark

“Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood (1987)

“No such luck. " He smiles. "For better or for worse, I don't have that kind of power. If I sound like I'm always predicting ominous things, it's because I'm a pragmatist. I use deductive reasoning to generalize, and I suppose this sometimes winds up sounding like unlucky prophecies. You know why? Because reality's just the accumulation of ominous prophecies come to life. All you have to do is open a newspaper on any given day and weigh the good news versus the bad news, and you'll see what I mean.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 17, Oshima