The Wind Up Bird Chronicle Quotes

“I'd be smiling and chatting away, and my mind would be floating around somewhere else, like a balloon with a broken string.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“From the moment of my birth, I lived with pain at the center of my life. My only purpose in life was to find a way to coexist with intense pain.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“I was enveloped in numbness, and absence of feeling so deep the bottom was lost from view.”
― haruki murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“The better you were able to imagine what you wanted to imagine, the farther you could flee from reality.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Maybe it's been like that for you till now. But you're not a kid anymore. You have the right to choose your own life. You can start again. If you want a cat, all you have to do is choose a life in which you can have a cat. It's simple. It's your right... right?”
― Haruki Murakami

“Do you know the story of the monkeys of the shitty island?" I asked Nobory Wataya.
He shook his head, with no sign of interest. "Never heard of it".
"Somewhere, far, far away, there's a shitty island. An island without a name. An island not worth giving a name. A shitty island with shitty shape. On this shitty island grow palm trees that also have shitty shapes. And the palm trees produce coconuts that give off a shitty smell. Shitty monkeys live in the trees, and they love to eat these shitty-smelling coconuts,after which they shit the world's foulest shit. The shit falls on the ground and builds up shitty mounds, making the shitty palm trees that grow on them even shittier. It's an endless cycle."
I drank the rest of my coffee.
"As I sat here looking at you," I continued, " I suddenly remembered the story of this shitty island. What I'm trying to say is this. A certain kind of shittiness, a certain kind of stagnation, a certain kind of darkness, goes on propagating itself by its own power in its own self-contained cycle. And once it passed a certain point, no one can stop it -even if the person himself want to stop it.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“I plant my elbows on the kitchen table, prop up my chin and think: When the hell did the compass needle get out of whack and lead my life astray?”
― Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes

“I was living for one thing only, and that was to confirm my own lack of feeling.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Have you ever had that feeling? That you’d like to go to a whole different place and become a whole different self?”
― Haruki Murakami

“I could do just about anything if somebody made me. But I don't have an image of the one thing I really want to do. That's my problem now. I can't find the image... I'm standing still, and I can't find the image.
- Toru”
― Haruki Murakami

“—Pero ¿sabes? —dijo ella echando la colilla al suelo y apagándola con la suela del zapato—. En la empresa donde trabajo tenemos terminantemente prohibido usar la palabra «calvo». Debemos decir «persona con problemas capilares». Dicen que «calvo» es un término discriminatorio. Yo una vez, en broma, dije «persona con minusvalías capilares» y ellos se pusieron furiosos. «No se puede hacer broma sobre eso», me advirtieron. ¡Es que ellos trabajan muy en serio! ¿Sabes? La gente de este mundo es taaan seria.”
― Haruki Murakami