2,618 Quotes by Haruki Murakami

A state of chronic powerlessness eats away at a person

I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.

You don't have to judge the whole world by your own standards. Not everybody is like you, you know.

The worst thoughts usually strike in the dead of the night.

What do you mean, 'playing really creatively'? Can you give me an example?" "Hmm, let's see ... you send the music deep enough into your heart so that it makes your body undergo a kind of a physical shift, and simultaneously the listener's body also undergoes the same kind of physical shift. It's giving birth to that kind of shared state. Probably.

It is my huge pleasure that my novels are translated into languages that are read among small numbers of people.

Sometimes it's not the people who change, it's the mask that falls off.

Everything in life is a metaphor.

Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest.