"If they invent a car that runs on stupid jokes, you could go far."
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Quote collection
Haruki Murakami quotes (page 36 of 55)
1.1K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Everyone may be ordinary, but they're not normal."
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"I don't really know if it's the right thing to do, making new life. Kids grow up, generations take their place. What does it all come to? More hills bulldozed and more ocean fronts filled in? Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it?"
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"Strange and mysterious things, though, aren't they - earthquakes? We take it for granted that the earth beneath our feet is solid and stationary. We even talk about people being 'down to earth' or having their feet firmly planted on the ground. But suddenly one day we see that it isn't true. The earth, the boulders, that are supposed to be solid, all of a sudden turn as mushy as liquid - From the short story "Thailand"
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"Properly speaking, should any individual ever have exact, clear knowledge of his own core consciousness?" "I wouldn't know," I said. "Nor would we," said the scientists."
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"I'm in no position to hand down any advice," he said, "but there's a rule I follow when I don't know what to do." "A rule?" "If you have to choose between something that has form and something that doesn't, go for the one without form. That's my rule. Whenever I run into a wall I follow that rule, and it always works out. Even if it's hard going at the time."
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"Then I noticed that my shadow was crying too, shedding clear, sharp shadow tears. Have you ever seen the shadows of tears, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? They’re nothing like ordinary shadows. Nothing at all. They come here from some other, distant world, especially for our hearts. Or maybe not. It struck me then that the tears my shadow was shedding might be the real thing, and the tears that I was shedding were just shadows. You don’t get it, I’m sure, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. When a naked seventeen-year-old girl is shedding tears in the moonlight, anything can happen. It’s true."
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"If you listen to the radio for a whole hour there's maybe one decent song. The rest is mass-produced garbage"
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"I didn't feel like I was in my own body; my body was just a lonely, temporary container I happened to be borrowing."
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"Tell me, Doctor, are you afraid of death?" "I guess it depends on how you die."
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"Certain kinds of knowledge rob people of their sleep."
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"My point is: in this whole wide world the only person you can depend on is you."
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"I think history is collective memories. In writing, I'm using my own memory, and I'm using my collective memory."
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"I think memory is the most important asset of human beings. It's a kind of fuel; it burns and it warms you. My memory is like a chest: There are so many drawers in that chest, and when I want to be a fifteen-year-old boy, I open up a certain drawer and I find the scenery I saw when I was a boy in Kobe. I can smell the air, and I can touch the ground, and I can see the green of the trees. That's why I want to write a book."
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"Stories lie deep in our souls. Stories lie so deep at the bottom of our hearts that they can bring people together on the deepest level. When I write a novel, I go into such depths."
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"Whatever can't be expressed might as well not exist."
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"It's basically impossible for everybody's justice to prevail or everybody's happiness to triumph, so chaos takes over."
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"Nakata's empty inside... Do you know what it means to be completely empty? Being empty is like a vacant house. An unlocked, vacant house. Anybody can come in, anytime they want. That's what scares me the most"
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"It's like the Tibetan Wheel of the Passions. As the wheel turns, the values and feelings on the outer rim rise and fall, shining or sinking into darkness. But true love stays fastened to the axle and doesn't move."
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"I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next."
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