Quotes From "A Wild Sheep Chase" By Haruki Murakami

Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you. Haruki Murakami

Time does not expand."" But time is actually expanding, isn't it? You yourself said that time adds up."" That's only because time needed for transit has decreased. The sum total of time doesn't change. It's only that you can see more movies. Haruki Murakami

There are symbolic dreams-- dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities -- realities that symbolize a dream. Symbols are what you might call the honorary town councillors of the worm universe. In the worm universe, there is nothing unusual about a dairy cow seeking a pair of pliers. A cow is bound to get her pliers sometime. It has nothing to do with me. Haruki Murakami

Mountains, according to the angle of view, the season, the time of day, the beholder's frame of mind, or any one thing, can effectively change their appearance. Thus, it is essential to recognize that we can never know more than one side, one small aspect of a mountain. Haruki Murakami

I skipped the thirty-one years between 1938 and 1965 and jumped to the section entitled “Junitaki Today.” Of course, the book’s “today” being 1970, it was hardly today’s “today.” Still, writing the history of one town obviously imposed the necessity of bringing it up to a “today.” And even if such a today soon ceases to be today, no one can deny that it is in fact a today. For if a today ceased to be today, history could not exist as history. Haruki Murakami

It's a funny thing sensing someone else's sex drive. After a while, you get to mistaking it for your own. Haruki Murakami

Everybody has some one thing they do not want to lose, " began the man. "You included. And we are professionals at finding out that very thing. Humans by necessity must have a midway point between their desires and their pride. Just as all objects must have a center of gravity. This is something we can pinpoint. Only when it is gone do people realize it even existed. Haruki Murakami

From the photo albums, every single print of her had been peeled away. Shots of the both of us together had been cut, the parts with her neatly trimmed away, leaving my image behind. Photos of me alone or of mountains and rivers and deer and cats were left intact. Three albums rendered into a revised past. It was as if I'd been alone at birth, alone all my days, and would continue alone. Haruki Murakami

I was feeling lonely without her, but the fact that I could feel lonely at all was consolation. Loneliness wasn't such a bad feeling. It was like the stillness of the pin oak after the little birds had flown off. Haruki Murakami

I'm going to live to be twenty-five, ' she said, 'then die. Haruki Murakami

It is cognition that is the fantasy.. Everything I tell you now is mere words. Arrange them and rearrange them as I might, I will never be able to explain to you the form of Will.. My explanation would only show the correlation between myself and that Will by means of a correlation on the verbal level. The negation of cognition thus correlates to the negation of language. For when those two pillars of Western humanism, individual cognition and evolutionary continuity, lose their meaning, language loses meaning. Existence ceases for the individuum as we know it, and all becomes chaos. You cease to be a unique entity unto yourself, but exist simply as chaos. And not just the chaos that is you; your chaos is also my chaos. To wit, existence is communication, and communication, existence. . Haruki Murakami

As if a great creature had grown old without being able to express its feelings. Not that it didn't know how to express them, but rather it didn't know what to express. Haruki Murakami

I guess I felt attached to my weakness. My pain and suffering too. Summer light, the smell of a breeze, the sound of cicadas - if I like these things, why should I apologize? Haruki Murakami

To wit, existence is communication and communication is existence. Haruki Murakami

There's not a branch of publishing or broadcasting that doesn't depend in some way on advertising. It'd be like an aquarium without water. Why, ninety-five percent of the information that reaches you has already been preselected and paid for. Haruki Murakami

It was——how shall I put it?——a painfully solitary building. Let me explain. Say we have a concept. It goes without saying that there will be slight exceptions to that norm. Now, over time these exceptions spread like stains until finally they form a separate concept. To which other exceptions crop up. It was that kind of building, some ancient life form that had evolved blindly, toward who knows what end. . Haruki Murakami

There. My ears are all dead. Now you try." Three times I repeated the movements she'd made. Slowly, carefully, but nothing left me with the impression that my ears had died. The wine was rapidly circulating through my system." I do believe that my ears aren't dying properly, " I said, disappointed. She shook her head. "That's okay. If your ears don't need to die, there's nothing wrong with them not dying. Haruki Murakami

A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. Haruki Murakami

There are symbolic dreams-dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities-realities that symbolize a dream Haruki Murakami

...All without any more sound than flipping over a playing card. And sitting in this limo, compared to my fifteen-year-old Volkswagen Beetle I'd bought off a friend, was as quiet as sitting at the bottom of a lake wearing earplugs. Haruki Murakami

The second whiskey is always my favorite. From the third on, it no longer has any taste. It's just something to pour into your stomach. Haruki Murakami