Asquared > Asquared's Quotes

“If you never noticed, it never happened.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 Book 1

“Life is so uncertain: you never know what could happen. One way to deal with that is to keep your pajamas washed.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us - is rewritten - we lose the ability to sustain our true selves.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Find me now. Before someone else does.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Knowledge and ability were tools, not things to show off.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Please remember: things are not what they seem.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Things can be seen better in the darkness," he said, as if he had just seen into her mind. "But the longer you spend in the dark, the harder it becomes to return to the world aboveground where the light is”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
― Anton Chekhov

“I'm not afraid to die. What I'm afraid of is having reality get the better of me, of having reality leave me behind.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Subject and object are not as distinct as most people think. If the boundary separating the two isn't clear-cut to begin with, it is not such a difficult task to intentionally shift back and forth from one to the other.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“That is why it is necessary for you to fasten your feelings to the earth—firmly, like attaching an anchor to a balloon.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Even castles in the sky can do with a fresh coat of paint.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“No matter where i go, i still end up me. What's missing never changes. The scenery may change, but i'm still the same incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that i can never satisfy. I think that lack itself is as close as i'll come to defining myself.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“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.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a "Reserved" sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant. Despite the fact that I was sure I'd never see her again.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“I didn't feel like I was in my own body; my body was just a lonely, temporary container I happened to be borrowing.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Once thing goes wrong, then the whole house of cards collapses. And there's no way you can extricate yourself. Until someone comes along to drag you out.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star.
It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago.
Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“She was, if anything, on the plain side, at least not the type to attract men wherever she went. But there was something in her face that was meant for me alone. Everytime we met, I took a good look at her. And loved what I saw.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“But you know Hajime, some feelings cause us pain because they remain.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Hajime," she began, "the sad truth is that some things can't go backwards. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back to the way they were. If one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“If I stayed here, something inside me would be lost forever—something I couldn't afford to lose. It was like a vague dream, a burning, unfulfilled desire. The kind of dream people have only when they're seventeen.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“I can't build a simple shelf. I have no idea how to change an oil filter on a car. I can't even stick a stamp on an envelope straight. And I'm always dialling the wrong number. But I have come up with a few original cocktails that people seem to like.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“In order to pin down reality as realilty, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created within our consciousness, and it is the maintenance of this chain which produces the sensation that we are actually here, that we ourselves exist.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“[...] Shimamoto had her own little world within her. A world that was for her alone, one I could not enter.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“People want to be bowled over by something special. Nine times out of ten you can forget, but that tenth time, that peak experience, is what people want. That's what can move the world. That's art.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“What would tomorrow bring? I wondered. Both hands on the wheel, I closed my eyes. I didn’t feel like I was in my own body; my body was just a lonely, temporary container I happened to be borrowing. What would become of me tomorrow I did not know.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“You’re here,” I continued. “At least you look as if you’re here. But maybe you aren’t. Maybe it’s just your shadow. The real you may be someplace else. Or maybe you already disappeared, a long, long time ago. I reach out my hand to see, but you’ve hidden yourself behind a cloud of probablys. Do you think we can go on like this forever?”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun