Sputnik Sweetheart Quotes

“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

“I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Of course it hurt that we could never love each other in a physical way. We would have been far more happy if we had. But that was like the tides, the change of seasons--something immutable, an immovable destiny we could never alter. No matter how cleverly we might shelter it, our delicate friendship wasn't going to last forever. We were bound to reach a dead end. That was painfully clear.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“So that's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us--that's snatched right out of our hands--even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to the end of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

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

“Sometimes I feel so- I don’t know - lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when everything you’re used to has been ripped away. Like there’s no more gravity, and I’m left to drift in outer space with no idea where I’m going’
Like a little lost Sputnik?’
I guess so.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

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

“There weren't any curtains in the windows, and the books that didn't fit into the bookshelf lay piled on the floor like a bunch of intellectual refugees.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“In the world we live in, what we know and what we don't know are like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“So that’s how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the
loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us - that's
snatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completely
changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to
play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to the
end of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off
behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday.
Leaving behind a feeling of insurmountable emptiness...
Maybe, in some distant place, everything is already, quietly, lost.
Or at least there exists a silent place where everything can
disappear, melting together in a single, overlapping figure. And as
we live our lives we discover - drawing toward us the thin threads
attached to each - what has been lost. I closed my eyes and tried to
bring to mind as many beautiful lost things as I could. Drawing them
closer, holding on to them. Knowing all the while that their lives
are fleeting.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“We're both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We're connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“This kind of thing doesn't seem to bother most people. Given the chance, people are surprisingly frank when they talk about themselves. "I'm honest and open to a ridiculous degree," they'll say, or "I'm thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world." Or "I am very good at sensing others' true feelings." But any number of times I've seen people who say they're easily hurt hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they're doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those "good at sensing others' true feelings" are duped by the most transparent flattery. It's enough to make me ask the question: How well do we really know ourselves?”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might be, that alone doesn't make it a living breathing novel. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“In the spring of her twenty-second year, Sumire fell in love for the first time in her life.”
― 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

“You know what I'd really like to do the most right now? Climb up to the top of some high place like the pyramids. The highest place I can find. Where you can see forever. Stand on the very top, look all around the world, see all the scenery, and see with my own eyes what's been lost from the world.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.”
― 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

“I must be in love with this woman, Sumire realized with a start. No
mistake about it. Ice is cold; roses are red; I'm in love. And this
love is about to carry me off somewhere. This current's too
overpowering; I don't have any choice. It may very well be a special
place, some place I've never seen before. Danger may be lurking
there, something that may end up wounding me deeply, fatally. I might
end up losing everything. But there's no turning back. I can only go
with the flow. Even if it means I'll be burned up, gone forever.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“After all this, I won't start to hate you.”
― 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

“Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it'd lose even its imperfection.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Her voice was like a line from an old black-and-white Jean-Luc Godard movie, filtering in just beyond the frame of my consciousness.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Imagine The Greatest Hits of Bobby Darin minus 'Mack the Knife.' That's what my life would be like without you.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Did you ever see anyone shot by a gun without bleeding?”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“No matter what form the relationship might take, he was the only person she could picture sharing her life with.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to. We'd just make small talk, play soccer together. When something bothered me, I didn't talk with anyone about it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that's just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis, have to survive on their own.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“An empty shell. Those were the first words that sprang to mind. .... Something incredibly important - .. - had disappeared from Miu for good. Leaving behind not life, but its absence”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“I began to draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people. No matter who I was dealing with. I maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person’s attitude so that they wouldn’t get any closer. I didn’t easily swallow what other people told me. My only passions were books and music”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life and it’d lose even its imperfection.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“I understand what you mean by precarious. Sometimes I feel so- I don't know- lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when everything you're used to has been ripped away. Like there's no more gravity, and I'm left to drift in outer space. With no idea where I'm headed.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“There's not much you can do about time - it just keeps on passing. But experience? Don't tell me that. I'm not proud of it, but I don't have any sexual desire. And what sort of experience can a writer have if she doesn't feel passion? It'd be like a chef without an appetite.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“It made her think of Laika, the dog. The man-made satellite streaking soundlessly across the blackness of outer space. The dark, lustrous eyes of the dog gazing out of the tiny window. In the infinite loneliness of space, what could Laika possibly be looking at?”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Understanding is but the sum of misunderstandings.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“In the end, like so many beautiful promises in our lives, that dinner date never came to be.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“¿Por qué tenemos que quedarnos todos tan solos? Pensé. ¿Qué necesidad hay? Hay tantísimas personas en este mundo que esperan, todas y cada una de ellas, algo de los demás, y que, no obstante, se aíslan tanto las unas de las otras. ¿Para qué? ¿Se nutre acaso el planeta de la soledad de los seres humanos para seguir rotando? (…) Cerré los ojos, agucé el oído y pensé en los descendientes del Sputnik que cruzaban el firmamento teniendo como único vínculo la gravedad de la tierra. Unos solitarios pedazos de metal en la negrura del espacio infinito que de repente se encontraban, se cruzaban y se separaban para siempre. Sin una palabra, sin una promesa.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Maybe it's just hiding somewhere. Or gone on a trip to come home. But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows — maybe even tomorrow.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“In the spring of her twenty-second year, Sumire fell in love for
the first time in her life. An intense love, a veritable tornado
sweeping across the plains—flattening everything in its path,
tossing things up in the air, ripping them to shreds, crushing
them to bits. The tornado’s intensity doesn’t abate for a second
as it blasts across the ocean, laying waste to Angkor Wat,
incinerating an Indian jungle, tigers and everything,
transforming itself into a Persian desert sandstorm, burying an
exotic fortress city under a sea of sand. In short, a love of truly
monumental proportions. The person she fell in love with
happened to be 17 years older than Sumire. And was married.
And, I should add, was a woman. This is where it all began,
and where it all ended. Almost.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Pero, si se me permite formular una anodina teoria general, en nuestra vida imperfecta las cosas inutiles son, en cierta medida, necesarias.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“If I'm going to merely ramble, maybe I should just snuggle under the warm covers, think of Miu, and play with myself.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“A los veintidós años, en primavera, Sumire se enamoró por primera vez. Fue un amor violento como un tornado que barre en línea recta una vasta llanura. Un amor que lo derribó todo a su paso, que lo succionó todo hacia el cielo en su torbellino, que lo descuartizó todo en un arranque de locura, que lo machacó todo por completo. Y, sin que su furia amainara un ápice, barrió el océano, arrasó sin misericordia las ruinas de Angkor Vat, calcinó con su fuego las selvas de la India repletas de manadas de desafortunados tigres y, convertido en tempestad de arena del desierto persa, sepultó alguna exótica ciudad amurallada. Fue un amor glorioso, monumental. La persona de quien Sumire se enamoró era diecisiete años mayor que ella, estaba casada. Y debo añadir que era una mujer. Aquí empezó todo y aquí acabó (casi) todo.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Judging the mistakes of strangers is an easy thing to do - and it feels pretty good.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Porque será que estamos condenados a ser assim tão solitários? Qual a razão de tudo isto? Há tanta gente, tanta gente neste mundo, todos à espera de qualquer coisa uns dos outros e, contudo, todos irremediavelmente afastados. Porquê? Continuará a Terra a girar unicamente para alimentar a solidão dos homens?”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart