Haruki Murakami Quotes

I need to learn not just to forget but to forgive.

I rarely suffer lengthy emotional distress from contact with other people. A person may anger or annoy me, but not for long. I can distinguish between myself and another as beings of two different rea...

I spent thirty-three years in another man's shadow. I went everywhere he went, I helped him with everything he did. I was in a sense a part of him. When you live like that for a long time, you gradual...

I tell lies sometimes. The last time I lied was a year ago. I absolutely detest lying. You could say that lying and silence are the two greatest sins of present day society. Actually, I lie a lot, and...

I want to believe you, but if that's true, I just don't get it. 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'll bet they think they can leave you alone because you've really got it together.But maybe sometimes you don't really have it together.

I'm not sure if I could tell the difference—between just staring into space and thinking. We're usually thinking all the time, aren't we? Not that we live in order to think, but the opposite isn't tru...

I've always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I'm wrong, but I won't change.

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

If people aren’t equal, where would you fit in?

If there’s something I can’t do but want to, I won’t relax until I’m able to do it.

If writers only wrote about things everybody knew, what the hell would be the point of writing?

If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden. The two processes complement each other, creating a complete landscape that I treasure. The gree...

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. That’s the world of hicks and slobs. Real people would be ashamed of themselves doing that.

If you're looking for fine art or literature, you might want to read some stuff written by the Greeks. Because to create true fine art, slaves are a necessity. That's how the ancient Greeks felt, with...

Imagine minus 'Mack the Knife.' That's what my life would be like without you.

In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment.

In a world of time, nothing can go back to the way it was.

In his own way, he's lived life with all the intensity he could muster.

In order to pin down reality as realilty, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created within...