Top 500 Haruki Murakami Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “In a sense, I’m the one who ruined me: I did it myself.”

— Haruki Murakami

202. “I like to read books. I like to listen to music.”

— Haruki Murakami

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

— Haruki Murakami

204. “Friends don’t need the intervention of a third party. Friendship’s a voluntary thing.”

— Haruki Murakami

205. “I’m a coward when it comes to matters of the heart. That is my fatal flaw.”

— Haruki Murakami

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

— Haruki Murakami

207. “I’m not so weird to me.”

— Haruki Murakami

208. “Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.”

— Haruki Murakami

209. “You got to know your limits. Once is enough, but you got to learn. A little caution never hurt anyone. A good woodsman has only one scar on him. No more, no less.”

— Haruki Murakami

210. “Life’s no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe’s my own to fool with.”

— Haruki Murakami

211. “The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring – and all of the acts carried out – on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories.”

— Haruki Murakami

212. “There is some risk, of course. But risk is the spice of life.”

— Haruki Murakami

213. “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.”

— Haruki Murakami

214. “When you are used to the kind of life -of never getting anything you want- you stop knowing what it is you want.”

— Haruki Murakami

215. “Like you’re riding a train at night across some vast plain, and you catch a glimpse of a tiny light in a window of a farmhouse. In an instant it’s sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes. But if you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you, just barely for a few moments.”

— Haruki Murakami

216. “I wonder what ants do on rainy days?”

— Haruki Murakami

217. “When the fire goes out, you’ll start feeling the cold. You’ll wake up whether you want to or not.”

— Haruki Murakami

218. “Among the many values in life, I appreciate freedom most.”

— Haruki Murakami

219. “The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.”

— Haruki Murakami

220. “What we needed were not words and promises but a steady accumulation of small realities.”

— Haruki Murakami

221. “Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won’t keep reading your work.”

— Haruki Murakami

222. “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.”

— Haruki Murakami

223. “I’m just kinda tired. Like a monkey in the rain.”

— Haruki Murakami

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

— Haruki Murakami

225. “Loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you.”

— Haruki Murakami

226. “An unhealthy soul requires a healthy body.”

— Haruki Murakami

227. “Pointless thinking is worse than no thinking at all.”

— Haruki Murakami

228. “Things pass us by. Nobody can catch them. That’s the way we live our lives.”

— Haruki Murakami

229. “My point is: in this whole wide world the only person you can depend on is you.”

— Haruki Murakami

230. “Killing time is not an easy job.”

— Haruki Murakami

231. “I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.”

— Haruki Murakami

232. “Two-thirds of earth’s surface is ocean, and all we can see with the naked eye is the surface.”

— Haruki Murakami

233. “Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I’m made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.”

— Haruki Murakami

234. “We all have ordeals we must face,” Menshiki said. “It’s through them that we find a new direction in our lives. The more grueling the ordeal, the more it can help us down the road.”

— Haruki Murakami

235. “Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That’s part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads – at least that’s where I imagine it – there’s a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you’ll live forever in your own private library.”

— Haruki Murakami

236. “Everything, everything seemed once-upon-a-time.”

— Haruki Murakami

237. “Our responsibility begins with our imagination.”

— Haruki Murakami

238. “I write my novels personally, desperately and non-negligently. When I write my novels, I think about my novels only, and never do other works.”

— Haruki Murakami

239. “Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day.”

— Haruki Murakami

240. “How much do you love me?? Midori asked. ‘Enough to melt all the tigers in the world to butter,’ I said.”

— Haruki Murakami

241. “Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it’s time to drink.”

— Haruki Murakami

242. “Waiting for your answer is one of the most painful things I have ever been through. At least let me know whether or not I hurt you.”

— Haruki Murakami

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

— Haruki Murakami

244. “Life is so uncertain: you never know what could happen. One way to deal with that is to keep your pajamas washed.”

— Haruki Murakami

245. “Not that running away’s going to solve everything. I don’t want to rain on your parade or anything, but I wouldn’t count on escaping this place if I were you. No matter how far you run. Distance might not solve anything.”

— Haruki Murakami

246. “Until the bitter end, the emptiness inside her was hers alone.”

— Haruki Murakami

247. “Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt.”

— Haruki Murakami

248. “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.”

— Haruki Murakami

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

— Haruki Murakami

250. “While they’re still alive, people can become ghosts.”

— Haruki Murakami