40 Forte > 40's Quotes

“If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

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

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“All language is but a poor translation.”
― Franz Kafka

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.”
― Franz Kafka

“Tell me, Doctor, are you afraid of death?"
"I guess it depends on how you die.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“I laughed. “You’re too young to be so … pessimistic,” I said, using the English word.
“Pessi-what?”
“Pessimistic. It means looking only at the dark side of things.”
“Pessimistic … pessimistic …” She repeated the English to herself over and over, and then she looked up at me with a fierce glare. “I’m only sixteen,” she said, “and I don’t know much about the world, but I do know one thing for sure. If I’m pessimistic, then the adults in this world who are not pessimistic are a bunch of idiots.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world?”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“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

“Like you're riding a train at night across some vast plain, and you
catch a glimpse of a tiny light in a window of a farmhouse. In an
instant it's sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes. But
if you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you, just
barely for a few moments.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“We each have a special something we can get only at a special time of our life. like a small flame. A careful, fortunate few cherish that flame, nurture it, hold it as a torch to light their way. But once that flame goes out, it’s gone forever.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.”
― Henry Miller

“Destiny is what you are supposed to do in life. Fate is what kicks you in the ass to make you do it.”
― Henry Miller

“It's good to be just plain happy, it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss.”
― Henry Miller

“Show me a man who over-elaborates and I will show you a great man! What is called their 'overelaboration' is my meat: it is the sign of struggle, it is struggle itself with all the fibers clinging to it, the very aura and ambiance of the discordant spirit. And when you show me a man who expresses himself perfectly I will not say that he is not great, but I will say that I am unattracted . . . I miss the cloying qualities. When I reflect that the task which the artist implicitly sets himself is to overthrow existing values, to make of the chaos about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and ferment so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to life, then it is that I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their confusion nourishes me, their stuttering is like divine music to my ears.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn

“Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cat’s Cradle

“You know, I think the main purpose of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps is to get poor Americans into clean, pressed, unpatched clothes, so rich Americans can stand to look at them.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“The big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“It was very exciting for her, taking his dignity away in the name of love.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
― Charles Bukowski

“That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women