Haruki Murakami: Quotes about thinking (page 2)

“If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you”

“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.”

“Perhaps most people in the world aren’t trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It’s all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real pickle. You’d better remember that. People actually prefer not being free?”

“You've already decided what you're going to do, and all that's left is to set the wheels in motion. I mean, it's your life. Basically, you gotta go with what you think is right.”

“In terms of evolutionary history, it was only yesterday that men learned to walk around on two legs and get in trouble thinking complicated thoughts. So don't worry, you'll burn out.”

“So once you're dead there's just nothing?
Mari: Basically…
Korogi: I get so scared when I start thinking about this stuff. I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner. It's so much easier to just believe in reincarnation.”

“Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go someplace where you don't know a soul? Sometimes I feel like doing that. I really really want to do it sometimes.”

“Time really is one big continuous cloth, no? We habitually cut out pieces of time to fit us, so we tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on.”

“I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do. To dream, to live in the world of dreams. But it doesn’t last forever. Wakefulness always comes to take me back.”

“Mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russians have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up.”

“If you think of someone enough, you’re sure to meet them again.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Thinking about spaghetti that boils eternally but is never done is a sad, sad thing.”

“Everybody thinks I'm this delicate little girl. But you can't tell a book by it's cover.' To which she added a momentary smile.”

“I think most people live in fiction… That's how you keep your fragile body intact.”

“sometimes I think I've got this hard kernel in my heart, and nothing much can get inside it. I doubt if I can really love anybody.”