Top 500 Haruki Murakami Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 9 of 10

401. “Better to be a first-class matchbox than a second-class match.”

— Haruki Murakami

402. “Even so, there were times I saw freshness and beauty. I could smell the air, and I really loved rock ‘n’ roll. Tears were warm, and girls were beautiful, like dreams. I liked movie theaters, the darkness and intimacy, and I liked the deep, sad summer nights.”

— Haruki Murakami

403. “Liest man, was alle anderen auch lesen, kann man auch nur das denken, was alle anderen denken.”

— Haruki Murakami

404. “That’s what love’s all about. You’re the only one having those wonderful feelings, but you have to go it alone as you wander through the dark your mind and body have to bear it all. All by yourself.”

— Haruki Murakami

405. “Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit.”

— Haruki Murakami

406. “I could disappear from the face of the earth, and the world would go on moving without the slightest twinge. Things were tremendously complicated, to be sure, but one thing was clear: no one needed me.”

— Haruki Murakami

407. “I never trust people with no appetite. It’s like they’re always holding something back on you.”

— Haruki Murakami

408. “In the end, like so many beautiful promises in our lives, that dinner date never came to be.”

— Haruki Murakami

409. “And when you come back to Japan next summer, let’s have that date or whatever you want to call it. We can go to the zoo or the botanical garden or the aquarium, and then we’ll have the most politically correct and scrumptious omelets we can find.”

— Haruki Murakami

410. “Colours shone with exceptional clarity in the rain. The ground was a deep black, the pine branches a brilliant green, the people wrapped in yellow looking like special spirits that were allowed to wander over the earth on rainy mornings only.”

— Haruki Murakami

411. “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.”

— Haruki Murakami

412. “Most of the psychological differences between men and women seem to come from differences in their reproductive system.”

— Haruki Murakami

413. “It was a small room with dim light coming in the window, reminiscent of old Polish films.”

— Haruki Murakami

414. “If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

— Haruki Murakami

415. “Somewhere in his body – perhaps in the marrow of his bones – he would continue to feel her absence.”

— Haruki Murakami

416. “When there’s nothing to do, you do nothing slowly and intently.”

— Haruki Murakami

417. “Lay down your mind and peace will come. A peace deeper than anything you have known.”

— Haruki Murakami

418. “In most cases learning something essential in life requires physical pain.”

— Haruki Murakami

419. “Never trust a man who carries a handkerchief, I always say. One of many prejudicial rules of thumb.”

— Haruki Murakami

420. “That’s gotta be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend, and leaving them that way.”

— Haruki Murakami

421. “Things change everyday. With each new dawn, it is not the same world as before. And you’re not the same person you were either.”

— Haruki Murakami

422. “There’s a special feeling you get on a veranda that you just can’t get anywhere else.”

— Haruki Murakami

423. “Spending plenty of time on something can be the most sophisticated form of revenge.”

— Haruki Murakami

424. “Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. Life is like that.”

— Haruki Murakami

425. “There is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person’s heart.”

— Haruki Murakami

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

— Haruki Murakami

427. “Results aside, the ability to have complete faith in another human being is one of the finest qualities a person can possess.”

— Haruki Murakami

428. “If you never noticed, it never happened.”

— Haruki Murakami

429. “Creative people have to be fundamentally egoistic. This may sound pompous, but it happens to be the truth. People who live their lives watching what goes on around them, trying not to make waves, and looking for the easy compromise are not going to be able to do creative work, whatever their field.”

— Haruki Murakami

430. “Everything was too sharp and clear, so that I could never tell where to start- the way a map that shows too much can sometimes be useless.”

— Haruki Murakami

431. “She was, if anything, on the plain side, at least not the type to attract men wherever she went. But there was something in her face that was meant for me alone. Everytime we met, I took a good look at her. And loved what I saw.”

— Haruki Murakami

432. “A deserted library in the morning – there’s something about it that really gets to me. All possible words and ideas are there, resting peacefully.”

— Haruki Murakami

433. “Exerting yourself to the limit over and over again, that is the essence of running. Running is painful, but the pain doesn’t leave me, I can take care of it. That agrees with my mentality.”

— Haruki Murakami

434. “None of us are ever finished. Everyone is always a work in progress.”

— Haruki Murakami

435. “I used to run a full marathon in three hours and 25 or 26 minutes. Not any more.”

— Haruki Murakami

436. “If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.”

— Haruki Murakami

437. “When microorganisms die, they make oil; when huge timbers fall, they make coal. But everything here was pure, unadulterated rubbish that didn’t make anything. Where does a busted videodeck get you?”

— Haruki Murakami

438. “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.”

— Haruki Murakami

439. “I’m not very good at putting my feelings into words. That’s why people misunderstand me.”

— Haruki Murakami

440. “Is it possible to become friends with a butterfly?”

— Haruki Murakami

441. “The best musicians transpose consciousness into sound; painters do the same for color and shape.”

— Haruki Murakami

442. “You have to patiently learn to live together with your shadow. And carefully observe the darkness that resides within you. Sometimes in a dark tunnel you have to confront your own dark side.”

— Haruki Murakami

443. “The most dangerous creature here would have to be me. So maybe I’m just scared of my own shadow.”

— Haruki Murakami

444. “The passage of time will usually extract the venom of most things and render them harmless.”

— Haruki Murakami

445. “What would tomorrow bring? I wondered. Both hands on the wheel, I closed my eyes. I didn’t feel like I was in my own body; my body was just a lonely, temporary container I happened to be borrowing. What would become of me tomorrow I did not know.”

— Haruki Murakami

446. “One day, I lost sight of her. I happened to glance away for a moment, and when I turned back, she had disappeared.”

— Haruki Murakami

447. “Certain kinds of knowledge rob people of their sleep.”

— Haruki Murakami

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

— Haruki Murakami

449. “All things in my novels are real for me. Some western critics said that Garcia Marquez’s novels are magic realism. However, I believe that Marquez must have experienced everything in his novels.”

— Haruki Murakami

450. “As I already explaned, I don’t have any form. I’m a conceptual metaphysical object.”

— Haruki Murakami