An > An's Quotes

“It's like a kid standing at the window watching the rain.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“What makes us the most normal," said Reiko, "is knowing that we're not normal.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“When it's raining like this," said Naoko, "it feels as if we're the only ones in the world. I wish it would just keep raining so the three of us could stay together.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven't answered me."

I probably still haven't completely adapted to the world," I said after giving it some thought. "I don't know, I feel like this isn't the real world. The people, the scene: they just don't seem real to me."

Midori rested an elbow on the bar and looked at me. "There was something like that in a Jim Morrison song, I'm pretty sure."

People are strange when you're a stranger.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“As long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in the end, changed into something else. It always happens, sooner or later.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Huge organizations and me don't get along. They're too inflexible, waste too much time, and have too many stupid people.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Love and used Subarus were two different things. Weren't they? ”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
― haruki murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“Letters are just pieces of paper," I said. "Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“For a while" is a phrase whose length can't be measured.At least by the person who's waiting.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“If they invent a car that runs on stupid jokes, you could go far.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“two people can sleep in the same bed and still be alone when they close their eyes”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“The right circumstances sometimes happen of their own accord, slyly, without fanfare, without warning. Layman's alchemy. . . . The magic of everyday things.”
― Joanne Harris, Blackberry Wine

“It's a feeling which tells me that any woman can be beautiful in the eyes of a man who loves her.”
― Joanne Harris, Five Quarters of the Orange

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“But I think happiness springs from another source, a far deeper one that doesn't depend on will because it comes from love.”
― Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis

“I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendants of Sputnik, even now circling the earth, gravity their only tie to the planet. Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words passing between them. No promises to keep.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“As a general rule...people ask for advice only in order not to follow it; or if they do follow it, in order to have someone to blame for giving it.”
― Alexandre Dumas

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another?
We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Hatred is like a long, dark shadow. Not even the person it falls upon knows where it comes from, in most cases. It is like a two-edged sword. When you cut the other person, you cut yourself. The more violently you hack at the other person, the more violently you hack at yourself. It can often be fatal. But it is not easy to dispose of. Please be careful, Mr.Okada. It is very dangerous. Once it has taken root in your heart, hatred is the most difficult think in the world to shake off.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle