Quotes From "After The Quake" By Haruki Murakami

Opera lovers may be the narrowest people in the world. Haruki Murakami

Listen to this, Nimit. Follow Coleman Hawkins' improvised lines very carefully. He is using them to tell us something. Pay very close attention. He is telling us the story of the free spirit that is doing everything it can to escape from within him. That same kind of spirit is inside me, inside you. There--you can hear it, I'm sure: the hot breath, the shivering heart. (Thailand) Haruki Murakami

Exactly. When is comes to anything halfway important, you just don't get it. It's amazing to me that you can put a piece of fiction together'' Yeah, well, that's a whole different thing.'(from Honey Pie) Haruki Murakami

What I was chasing in circles must have been the tail of the darkness inside me. Haruki Murakami

Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value. Haruki Murakami

Words left their mouths to hang frozen in midair. Haruki Murakami

I want to write stories that are different from the ones I've written so far, Junpei thought: I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love. Haruki Murakami

The whole terrible fight occured in the area of imagination. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there, that we experience our victories and defeats. Haruki Murakami

I just gave them a little scare. A touch of psychological terror. As Joseph Conrad once wrote, true terror is the kind that men feel towards their imagination. (from Super-frog Saves Tokyo) Haruki Murakami

This life is nothing but a short, painful dream. Haruki Murakami

That’s my dream. It’s always the same. Always. Every little detail. And every time I have it, it’s just as scary as the last.(…) It’s so real, I feel as if I’ve already died hundreds of times. Haruki Murakami

She tried to think about what lay ahead, but soon gave up. 'Words turn into stone, ' Nimit had told her. She settled deep into her seat and closed her eyes. All at once the image came to her of the sky she had seen while swimming on her back. And Erroll Garner's 'I'll Remember April.' Let me sleep, she thought. Just let me sleep. And wait for the dream to come. Haruki Murakami

No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself. It’s like your shadow. It follows you everywhere. -Komura Haruki Murakami

There was a time when my soul was wandering through the deepest darkness… Haruki Murakami

Our hearts are not stones. A stone may disintegrate in time and lose its outward form. But hearts never disintegrate. They have no outward form, and whether good or evil, we can always communicate them to one another. Haruki Murakami

He would eventually have to pass through the forest, but he felt no fear. Of course - the forest was inside him, he knew, and it made him who he was. Haruki Murakami

And then it struck him what lay buried far down under the earth on which his feet were so firmly planted: the ominous rumbling of the deepest darkness, secret rivers that transported desire, slimy creatures writhing, the lair of earthquakes ready to transform whole cities into mounds of rubble. These, too, were helping to create the rhythm of the earth. He stopped dancing and, catching his breath, stared at the ground beneath his feet as though peering into a bottomless hole. Haruki Murakami

A gust of wind set the leaves of grass to dancing and celebrated the grass's song before it died. Haruki Murakami

You are a beautiful person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But you seem always to be dragging your heart along the ground. From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value."-- Nimit in "Thailand . Haruki Murakami