Top 40 Hiromi Kawakami Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Physical intimacy is essential. No matter how old are you, it’s extremely important.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

2. “Abandoned houses stand empty, foreboding, for a decade or so, but if they are left longer than that, they begin anew, they are reborn as living things.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

3. “Those nights, I open Sensei’s briefcase and peer inside. The blank empty space unfolds, containing nothing within. It holds nothing more than an expanse of desolate absence.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

4. “When you get old and long-sighted, you can’t look your sweetheart in the eye from close up. You need a little distance, so that you can focus on each other. So that your faces don’t look blurry- anyway, you need a little distance.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

5. “I rode the bus alone, I walked around the city alone, I did my shopping alone, and I drank alone.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

6. “I, on the other hand, still might not be considered a proper grown-up. I had been very much the adult when I was in elementary school. But as I continued on through junior high and high school, on the contrary, I became less grown-up. And then as the years passed, I turned into quite a childlike person. I suppose I just wasn’t able to ally myself with time.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

7. “El cuerpo y la mente son inseparables, una misma cosa.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

8. “I felt a sudden rush of warmth in my body, and felt the tears well up once again. But I didn’t cry. It’s always better to drink than to cry.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

9. “There are plenty of people in the world I don’t dislike, some of whom I almost like; on the other hand, I almost hate some of those whom I don’t dislike, too. But how many people did I truly love?”

— Hiromi Kawakami

10. “Forcing myself to make conversation felt like standing on a cliff, peering over the edge, about to tumble down headfirst.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

11. “In loneliness I have drifted this long way, alone. My torn and shabby robe could not keep out the cold. And tonight the sky was so clear it made my heart ache all the more.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

12. “Having to worry about whether someone is healthy enough to tolerate my fierce hatred or criticism before I decide to blame them – that’s what I call getting old.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

13. “What is love, really? People have the right to fall in love, but not the right to be loved. I fell in love with Nishino, but that’s not to say that he was then required to fall in love with me.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

14. “If the love is true, then treat it the same way you would plant – feed it, protect it from the elements – you must do absolutely everything you can. But if it isn’t true, then it’s best to just let it wither on the vine.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

15. “That was quite a discovery for me, the fact that arbitrary kindness makes me uncomfortable, but that being treated fairly feels good.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

16. “If not kept in check, night-time thoughts are prone to amplification.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

17. “Would you like consider a relationship with me, based on a premise of love.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

18. “Up until now, I thought I had enjoyed my life alone, somehow.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

19. “Everyone causes trouble for someone at some point in their lives.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

20. “Everything felt so far away.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

21. “A person can learn all manner of things, no matter where he finds himself, provided his spirit is determined.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

22. “All translation is mistranslation. But maybe there should be a second part to that phrase. All conversation is misunderstanding. I think about the discrepancies that will always exist in the gaps between languages whenever I go anywhere outside Japan, anywhere where Japanese, my native language, isn’t spoken. But even when I use my native language, the same thing does apply. All language is misunderstanding. In degrees.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

23. “No, little boys are much wimpier than little girls.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

24. “The number of kiwis was increasing by the minute. When I looked about me, there were dozens of them, all identical, and each one fired off a question to me in turn.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

25. “I kissed the girl on the lips, as if to suck her breath inside me. When I did this, the girl wilted, ever so slightly. In my arms, gradually she became lighter, and more transparent. The smell of lilies rose up, filling my breast, overwhelming me. The taste of the kiss was so sweet, I couldn’t stop–even thoughI knew she would go on wilting if I continued. The girl was wilting by the instant, and something thick and strong was filling my breast.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

26. “How could anyone endure such a state, of having someone there and not there – not there and there – at the same time?”

— Hiromi Kawakami

27. “We could go anywhere at all, as long as I’m with you.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

28. “I could imagine Toko’s life story – she would fall perfectly in love with a guy, marry him, have children, then they would have her grandchildren and eventually she would die peacefully, surrounded by those children and grandchildren. My life story would probably play out quite a bit differently. The man I loved and children too might very well appear at some point, but their arrival would perhaps be strange and unexpected, and then again, they might never materialize at all.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

29. “Of course, everyone has a touch of madness in them. In fact, there’s something frightening about a person who isn’t a little crazy.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

30. “We were always sincere with each other. Even when we were joking around, we were sincere.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

31. “It grows because you plant it.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

32. “I had a habit of acting as though I were having a conversation with someone beside me – with the me who was not really right there beside me – as if to validate these random effervescences.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

33. “Even the smallest hole is enough to send a balloon spiraling to the ground. The falsification of memory is like that. All it takes is one individual who remembers the truth, said Romi, for the whole edifice to collapse.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

34. “That was the decision of a lifetime.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

35. “He tried to convince them that, since he was already in his late forties, their marriage might be more of a tea-drinking relationship.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

36. “Is that what you called benevolence? With Sensei, his benevolent nature seemed to originate from his sense of fair-mindedness. It wasn’t about being kind to me; rather, it was born from a teacherly attitude of being willing to listen to my opinion without prejudice. I found this considerably more wonderful than him just being nice to me.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

37. “It was as if everyone doled themselves out in such small portions. Never completely open, not all at once.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

38. “It grows because you tend it.′ This was a phrase often repeated by my great-aunt when she was alive. ‘That’s how love is,’ she used to say. ‘If the love is true, then treat it the same way you would a plant – feed it, protect it from the elements – you must do absolutely everything you can. But if it isn’t true, then it’s best to just let it wither on the vine.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

39. “People have the right to fall in love, but not the right to be loved.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

40. “That’s why I left the apartment. Out on the street, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t the only one here, that I wasn’t the only one feeling lonely. But this wasn’t the kind of thing you could tell just by looking at a passerby. The harder I tried to see, the less sure I was.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

41. “I hadn’t known that he felt the same way. By the time I found out, my feelings had already been oddly distorted, squashed down into the furthest reaches of my heart.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

42. “My wife was the kind of person who didn’t think things through. She just loved the things she loved, and hated the things she hated.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

43. “The idea... was slightly off-putting, but once I’ve started drinking, not much can stop me, so I went along.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

44. “It is hard to be ordinary. Extraordinary things abound. But the extraordinary usually can’t be sustained. Sooner or later, it breaks. Beyond the break it is easy. Keeping it ordinary is hardest of all.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

45. “For the first time in ages, we had a no-gravity alert. ‘This is the Disaster Preparedness Office speaking. We have been informed that there is an eighty per cent chance that a no-gravity event will take place between two and five o’clock this afternoon. Please remain indoors during those hours. If you must go out for reason, please make sure you are well weighted down. This has been a message from the Disaster Preparedness Office.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

46. “He had underestimated me. All along. Even though I had not underestimated him. But, how do you love someone without blinding yourself? Don’t we all have to indulge each other, let our guard down, and -ever so slightly- lower ourselves, in order to love someone?”

— Hiromi Kawakami

47. “Not once did he ever bring up anything of consequence. Then again, there aren’t many things in this world that are really of any consequence. Perhaps there are none at all.”

— Hiromi Kawakami

48. “I had screwed up. Grown-ups didn’t go around blurting out troublesome things to people. You couldn’t just blithely disclose something that would then make it impossible to greet them with a smile the next day.”

— Hiromi Kawakami