100 Quotes by Haruki Murakami

Some things in life are too complicated to explain in any language. (Quote Meaning)

Deep rivers run quiet. (Meaning)

No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself. (Quote Meaning)

Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. (Meaning)

If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets. (Quote Meaning)

People's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. (Meaning)

I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning. (Quote Meaning)

ELEVATE

Free Resource: Over 1000 smart goal ideas to inspire your life

Get Your Guide for FREE

I'm all alone, but I'm not lonely. (Meaning)

In a sense, I'm the one who ruined me: I did it myself. (Quote Meaning)

It's easy to forget things you don't need anymore. (Meaning)

We're all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. (Quote Meaning)

Be fearless, be brave, be bold, love yourself (Meaning)

Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt. (Quote Meaning)

Time flows in a strange way on Sundays. (Meaning)

You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them. (Quote Meaning)

The world is an inherently unfair place. (Meaning)

ELEVATE

Free Resource: A step-by-step process for healthier social media use

Get Your Guide for FREE

I'm not so weird to me. (Quote Meaning)

Pointless thinking is worse than no thinking at all. (Meaning)

I wonder what ants do on rainy days? (Quote Meaning)

The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night. (Meaning)

I wonder what ants do on rainy days? (Quote Meaning)

Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come. (Meaning)

A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. (Quote Meaning)

Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? (Meaning)

There's no war that will end all wars. (Quote Meaning)

That's what the world is , after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories. (Meaning)

What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. (Quote Meaning)

Learning another language is like becoming another person. (Meaning)

The light of morning decomposes everything. (Quote Meaning)

I move, therefore I am. (Meaning)

With luck, it might even snow for us. (Quote Meaning)

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language. (Meaning)

People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. (Quote Meaning)

A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do. (Meaning)

Only the dead stay seventeen forever. (Quote Meaning)

Chance encounters are what keep us going. (Meaning)

Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness? (Quote Meaning)

Time expands, then contracts, all in tune with the stirrings of the heart. (Meaning)

In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion. (Quote Meaning)

Cell phones are so convenient that they're an inconvenience. (Meaning)

Wherever there's hope there's a trial. (Quote Meaning)

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.[On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning ] (Meaning)

At least he never walked. (Quote Meaning)

And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in flight, searching the skies for dreams.

I have a million things to talk to you about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.

Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through, is now like something from the distant past. We're so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past, like ancient stars that have burned out, are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn. New styles, new information, new technology, new terminology. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.

Say it before you run out of time. Say it before it's too late. Say what you're feeling. Waiting is a mistake.

No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself.

I probably still haven’t completely adapted to the world. I don’t know, I feel like this isn’t the real world. The people, the scene: they just don’t seem real to me.

But if you knew you might not be able to see it again tomorrow, everything would suddenly become special and precious, wouldn’t it?

One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of true harmony.

When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

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?

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

If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.

I happen to like the strange ones. People who look normal and leads normal lives - they're the ones you have to watch out for.

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.

Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.

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.

This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don't get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can't do anything, don't get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it's ready to come undone. You have to realize it's going to be a long process and that you'll work on things slowly, one at a time.

You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.

Be fearless, be brave, be bold, love yourself

Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still.

Whenever I look at the ocean, I always want to talk to people, but when I'm talking to people, I always want to look at the ocean.

Everyone who has something is afraid of losing it, and people with nothing are worried they'll forever have nothing. Everyone is the same.

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.

Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely.

We're both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We're connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.

Now all you can do is wait. It must be hard for you, but there is a right time for everything. Like the ebb and flow of tides. No one can do anything to change them. When it is time to wait, you must wait.

I'm all alone, but I'm not lonely.

Sometimes it's not the people who change, it's the mask that falls off.

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.

We're all kind of weird and twisted and drowning.

The thing I’m most afraid of is me. Of not knowing what I’m going to do. Of not knowing what I’m doing right now

There is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.

As I see it, you are living with something that you keep hidden deep inside. Something heavy. I felt it from the first time I met you. You have a strong gaze, as if you have made up your mind about something. To tell you the truth, I myself carry such things around inside. Heavy things. That is how I can see it in you.

Sometimes you’re just the sweetest thing. Like Christmas, summer vacation, and a brand-new puppy rolled into one.

Even if we could turn back, we'd probably never end up where we started.

Here, too, a brand-new day is beginning. It could be a day like all the others, or it could be a day remarkable enough in many ways to remain in the memory. In either case, for now, for most people, it is a blank sheet of paper.

No mistake about it. Ice is cold; roses are red; I'm in love. And this love is about to carry me off somewhere. The current's too overpowering; I don't have any choice. It may very well be a special place, some place I've never seen before. Danger may be lurking there, something that may end up wounding me deeply, fatally. I might end up losing everything. But there's no turning back. I can only go with the flow. Even if it means I'll be burned up, gone forever.

One foot in front of the other. Repeat as often as necessary to finish.

Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.

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.

When people tell a lie about something, they have to make up a bunch of lies to go with the first one. ‘Mythomania’ is the word for it.

Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.

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. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring.

There are lots of things we never understand, no matter how many years we put on, no matter how much experience we accumulate.

Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves.

My very existence, my life in the world, seemed like a hallucination. A strong wind would make me think my body was about to be blown to the end of the earth, to some land I had never seen or heard of, where my mind and body would separate forever. “Hold tight,” I would tell myself, but there was nothing for me to hold on to.

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

Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger, and, I believe, it is far more inconstant.

I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.

It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.

Never let the darkness or negativity outside affect your inner self. Just wait until morning comes and the bright light will drown out the darkness.

As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around.

In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.

Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy.

Some things in life are too complicated to explain in any language.

What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.

If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.

Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.

There are ways of dying that don't end in funerals. Types of death you can't smell.

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.

If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there's salvation in life. Even if you can't get together with that person.

Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only arseholes do that.

All over the world people have developed their own ideas about what's right and wrong in life, but so long as you aren't harming others or the Earth, it's your choice when you decide how you want to live your life - Yours and yours alone. Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with.

Please remember: things are not what they seem.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live.

Such wounds to the heart will probably never heal. But we cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever.

As we go through life we gradually discover who we are, but the more we discover, the more we lose ourselves.

Time flows in strange ways on Sundays, and sights become mysteriously distorted.

Our responsibility begins with our imagination.

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.

Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn't control you--you should control them.

Find me now. Before someone else does.

Deep rivers run quiet.

I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love.

If you do anything out of the ordinary, you can be sure someone, somewhere, will get upset.

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

I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?

No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.

Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.

A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else.

What's nurtured slowly grows well.

You always look so cool, like no matter what happens, it’s got nothing to do with you, but you’re not really like that. In your own way, you’re out there fighting as hard as you can, even if other people can’t tell by looking at you.

Time flows in a strange way on Sundays.

Start making excuses and there's no end to it. I can't live that kind of life.

People fall in love without reason, without even wanting to. You can't predict it. That's love.

In dreams begins responsibilities.

The strength I'm looking for isn't the type where you win or lose. I'm not after a wall that'll repel power coming from outside. What I want us the kind of strength to be able to absorb that kind of power, to stand up to it. The strength to quietly endure things - unfairness, misfortunes, sadness, mistakes, misunderstandings.

One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds

The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.

The journey I'm taking is inside me. Just like blood travels down veins, what I'm seeing is my inner self and what seems threatening is just the echo of the fear in my heart.

Have you ever had that feeling—that you’d like to go to a whole different place and become a whole different self?

Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it's time to drink.

Inside that darkness, i saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it. The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don't know it is raining.

The world is an inherently unfair place.

Nothing so consumes a person as meaningless exertion

Being active every day makes it easier to hear that inner voice.

Understanding' is merely the sum total of our misunderstandings.

I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.

As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself.

An unhealthy soul requires a healthy body.

I was confident that I was a special person. But time slowly chips away at life. People don't just die when their time comes. They gradually die away, from the inside. And finally the day comes when you have to settle accounts. Nobody can escape it. People have to pay the price for what they've received. I have only just learned that truth.

What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real.

She was seriously in love, but she never made demands.

Even chance meetings are the result of karma… Things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.

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

But I didn't understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.

There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect.

Mental acuity was never born from comfortable circumstances.

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.

Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.

Loving another person is a wonderful thing, and if that love is sincere, no one ends up tossed into a labyrinth. You have to have more faith in yourself.

No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.

They were each like a mirror for the other, reflecting the changes in themselves.

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

Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.

It's easy to forget things you don't need anymore.

That’s how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.

Fate seems to be taking me in some even stranger directions.

If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price.

No matter how honestly you open up to someone, there are still things you cannot reveal.

Nobody's easier to fool, than the person who is convinced that he is right.

The best way to think about reality, I had decided, was to get as far away from it as possible.

Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt.

If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well.

With each passing moment I'm becoming part of the past. There is no future for me, just the past steadily accumulating.

Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.

People's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive.

What we seek is some kind of compensation for what we put up with.

Why does loving somebody mean you have to hurt them just as much? I mean, if that's the way it goes, what's the point of loving someone?

I contented myself with whiskey, for medicinal purposes. It helped numb my various aches and pains. Not that the alcohol actually reduced the pain; it just gave the pain a life of its own, apart from mine.

You have to wait until tomorrow to find out what tomorrow will bring.

To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm.

Everything, everything seemed once-upon-a-time.

No matter what you tell me, no matter how legitimate your reasons, I can never just forget about you, I can never push the years we spent together out of my mind. I can't do it because it really happened, they are part of my life, and there is no way I can just erase them. That would be the same as erasing my own self.

Did you ever see anyone shot by a gun without bleeding?

When someone is trying very hard to get something, they don't. And when they're running away from something as hard as they can, it usually catches up with them.

Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die.

No matter what form the relationship might take, he was the only person she could picture sharing her life with.

Pointless thinking is worse than no thinking at all.

One impossible day, of an impossible month, of an impossible year.

Don't let appearances fool you. There's always only one reality.