Quotes by Haruki Murakami

About Haruki Murakami:

Haruki Murakami is a contemporary Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies outside his native country.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

We can, if we so choose, wander aimlessly over the continent of the arbitrary. Rootless as some winged seed blown about on a serendipitous spring breeze.

Haruki Murakami

Anyhow, even though I might go out on a date with a boy, emotionally I just wouldn't be able to concentrate. I'd be smiling and chatting away, and my mind would be floating around somewhere else, like a balloon with a broken string. I'd be thinking a...

Haruki Murakami

We returned to the hotel and had intercourse. I like that word . It poses only a limited range of possibilities.

Haruki Murakami

I mean, all I do here is do the work that my bosses tell me to do the way they tell me to do it. I don't have to think at all. It's like I just put my brain in a locker before I start work and pick it up on the way home. I spend seven hours a day at ...

Haruki Murakami

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

Haruki Murakami

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

I was the chain that bit into my ankle, and I was the ruthless guard that never slept.

Haruki Murakami

If something came out of the deal, it couldn’t make things any worse for us than they already were, I thought. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. Hell has no true bottom.

Haruki Murakami

And in the movement of the sun, I felt something I hardly know how to name: some huge, cosmic love. 

Haruki Murakami

There are symbolic dreams-dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities-realities that symbolize a dream

Haruki Murakami

I feel as if the world is listening for my next thought. But I can't think of anything. Sorry, but I just can't think of anything.

Haruki Murakami

Looking up at [the sky], I think about the October evening world, where 'people' must be going about their lives. Beneath that pale autumn light, they must be walking down streets, going to the store for things, preparing dinner, boarding trains for ...

Haruki Murakami

Time really is one big continuous cloth, no? We habitually cut out pieces of time to fit us, so we tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on.

Haruki Murakami

I guess time doesn't flow in order, does it - A, B, C, D? It just sort of goes where it feels like going.

Haruki Murakami

The passage of time will usually extract the venom of most things and render them harmless

Haruki Murakami

I'd always thought that the earth on which I stood was a solid object that would last forever. Or rather, I'd never thought about such a thing at all. I'd simply taken it for granted.

Haruki Murakami

I was dying to have a cat. But they wouldn't let me. My mother hated them. Not once in my life have I managed to get something I really wanted. Not once. Can you believe it? You can't understand what it's like to live like that. When you get used to ...

Haruki Murakami

I know exactly what I'm doing, but I just can't stop. That's my greatest weakness.

Haruki Murakami

Generally, people who are good at writing letters have no need to write letters. They've got plenty of life to lead inside their own context.

Haruki Murakami

We were young, and we had no need for prophecies. Just living was itself an act of prophecy.

Haruki Murakami

For me- and for everybody else, probably- this is my first experience growing old, and the emotions I'm having, too, are all first-time feelings. If it were something I'd experienced before, then I'd be able to understand it more clearly, but this is...

Haruki Murakami

Author Bio

  • NameHaruki Murakami
  • DescriptionJapanese author, novelist
  • AliasesMurakami Haruki
  • BornJanuary 12, 1949
  • CountryJapan
  • ProfessionLinguist; Novelist; Writer; Translator; Essayist
  • WorksA Wild Sheep Chase; Norwegian Wood; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; Kafka On The Shore; 1Q84
  • AwardsFranz Kafka Prize; Yomiuri Prize; Tanizaki Prize; Jerusalem Prize; Noma Literary Prize; World Fantasy Award For Best Novel; Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award