We have a sane part of our minds and an insane part. We negotiate between those two parts.
— haruki murakami
My head is like some ridiculous barn packed full of stuff I want to write about,” she said. “Images, scenes, snatches of words … in my mind they’re all glowing, all alive. Write! they shout at me. A great new story is about to be born - I can feel it. It’ll transport me to some brand-new place. Problem is, once I sit at my desk and put them all down on paper, I realize something vital is missing. It doesn’t crystallize - no crystals, just pebbles. And I’m not transported anywhere.
— murakami (sputnik sweetheart)
As long as I stared at the clock, at least the world remained in motion. Not a very consequential world, but in motion nonetheless. And as long as I knew the world was still in motion, I knew I existed. Not a very consequential existence, but an existence nonetheless. It struck me as wanting that someone should confirm his own existence only by the hands of an electric wall clock. There had to be a more cognitive means of confirmation. But try as I might, nothing less facile came to mind.
— haruki murakami (the wild sheep chase)
When you’re serious, you could be unstable. When you’re humorous, you’re stable. But you can’t fight the war smiling.
— haruki murakami
Hey, Kizuki, I thought, you’re not missing a damn thing. This world is a piece of shit. The assholes are earning their college credits and helping to create a society in their own disgusting image.
— murakami (norwegian wood)
Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That’s it. That’s my heart.
— haruki murakami
But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o’clock in the morning.
— haruki murakami (the wind-up bird chronicle)
Certain kinds of information are like smoke: they work their way into people’s eyes and minds whether sought out or not, and with no regard to personal preference.
— haruki murakami (the wind-up bird chronicles)
It was not one of those strong, impulsive feelings that can hit two people like an electric shock when they first meet, but something quieter and gentler, like two tiny lights traveling in tandem through a vast darkness and drawing imperceptibly closer to each other as they go.
— murakami (the wind-up bird chronicles)
In dreams you don’t need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don’t exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don’t hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality.
— murakami (sputnik sweetheart)
I’m a far more flawed human being than you realize. My sickness is a lot worse than you think: it has deeper roots. And that’s why I want you to go on ahead of me if you can. Don’t wait for me. Sleep with other girls if you want to. Don’t let thoughts of me hold you back. Just do what you want to do. Otherwise, I might end up taking you with me, and that is the one thing I don’t want to do. I don’t want to interfere with your life. I don’t want to interfere with anybody’s life. Like I said before, I want you to come to see me every once in a while, and always remember me. That’s all I want.
— murakami (norwegian wood)
But in real life things don’t go so smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks on our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. It isn’t always the case, but from experience I’d say the gloomy reports far outnumber the others. The messenger touches his hand to his cap and looks apologetic, but that does nothing to improve the contents of the message. It isn’t the messenger’s fault. No good to blame him, no good to grab him by the collar and shake him. The messenger is just conscientiously doing the job his boss assigned him. And this boss? That would be none other than our old friend Reality.
— murakami (what i talk about when i talk about running)
I think memory is the most important asset of human beings. It’s a kind of fuel; it burns and it warms you.
— haruki murakami
