Quotes From "Hardboiled Wonderland And The End Of The World" By Haruki Murakami

Now for a good twelve-hour sleep, I told myself. Twelve solid hours. Let birds sing, let people go to work. Somewhere out there, a volcano might blow, Israeli commandos might decimate a Palestinian village. I couldn't stop it. I was going to sleep. Haruki Murakami

Let your body work until it is spent, but keep your mind to yourself. Haruki Murakami

Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters. If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but lose you. Haruki Murakami

Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering. Haruki Murakami

Open your eyes, train your ears, use your head. If a mind you have, then use it while you can. Haruki Murakami

You're wrong. The mind is not like raindrops. It does not fall from the skies, it does not lose itself among other things. If you believe in me at all, then believe this: I promise you I will find it. Everything depends on this." "I believe you, " she whispers after a moment. "Please find my mind. Haruki Murakami

Let your body work until it is spent, but keep your mind for yourself. Haruki Murakami

How can I be strong when I do not know my own mind? I am lost."" That's not true. You are not lost. It's just that your own thoughts are being kept from you, or hidden away. But the mind is strong. It survives, even without thought. Even with everything taken away, it holds a seed-- your self. You must believe in your own powers. Haruki Murakami

The mind is strong. It survives, even without thought. Even with everything taken away, it holds a seed--your self. You must believe in your own powers. Haruki Murakami

Tisn't any need for you't'know. Even without you knowin', you function as yourself. That's your black box. In other words, we all carry around this great unexplored 'elephant graveyard' inside us. Outer space aside, this is truly humanity's last terra incognita Haruki Murakami

No two human beings are alike; it's a question of identity. And what is identity? The cognitive system arisin' from the aggregate memories of that individual's past experiences. The layman's word for this is the mind. Not two human beings have the same mind. At the same time, human beings have almost no grasp of their own cognitive systems. I don't, you don't, nobody does. All we know–or think we know–is but a fraction of the whole cake. A mere tip of the icing. Haruki Murakami

The mind is strong. It survives, even without thought. Even with everything taken away, it holds a seed–your self. Haruki Murakami

That's the way it is with the mind. Nothing is ever equal. Like a river, as it flows, the course changes with the terrain. Haruki Murakami

Think it over carefully. This is very important, " I say, "because to believe something, whatever it might be, is the doing of the mind. Do you follow? When you say you believe, you allow the possibility of disappointment. And from disappointment or betrayal, there may come despair. Such is the way of the mind. Haruki Murakami

Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger, and, I believe, it is far more inconstant. Haruki Murakami

I thought about the screws and their happiness. Maybe they were glad to be free of the eggbeater, to be independent screws, to luxuriate on white trays. It did feel good to see them happy. Haruki Murakami

Many are the women who can take their clothes off seductively, but women who can charm as they dress? Haruki Murakami

When you say you believe, you allow the possibility of disappointment. And from disappointment or betrayal, there may come despair. Such is the way of the mind. Haruki Murakami

I never trust people with no appetite. It's like they're always holding something back on you. Haruki Murakami

Besides being the world the kind of sadness that can not be expressed in tears. You can not explain it to anyone. Unable to take any shape, settles quietly in the bottom of the heart as snow during the windless night. Haruki Murakami

But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't going anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return. Was that so depressing? Who knows? Maybe that was 'despair.' What Turgenev called 'disillusionment.' Or Dostoyevsky, 'hell.' Or Somerset Maugham, 'reality.' Whatever the label, I figured it was me. Haruki Murakami

My world foreshortened, flattening into a credit card. Seen head on, things seemed merely skewed, but from the side the view was virtually meaningless--a one-dimensional wafer. Everything about me may have been crammed in there, but it was only plastic. Indecipherable except to some machine. Haruki Murakami

That's evolution. Evolution's always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution Haruki Murakami

Wasn't much of a life anyway. Wasn't much of a brain."" But didn't you say you were satisfied with your life?"" Word games, " I dismissed. "Every army needs a flag. Haruki Murakami

They had stolen my memories from me! Nobody had that right. Nobody! My memories belonged to me. Stealing memories was stealing time. I got so mad, I lost all fear. I didn't care what happened. I want to live! I told myself. I will live. I will get out of this insane netherworld and get back my stolen memories back and live. Forget the end of the world, I was ready to reclaim my whole self. Haruki Murakami

I shouted into the phone, but there was no reply. Silence floated up from the receiver like smoke from the mouth of a gun. Haruki Murakami

Were the stars out when I left the house last evening? All I could remember was the couple in the Skyline listening to Duran Duran. Stars? Who remembers stars? Come to think of it, had I even looked up at the sky recently? Had the stars been wiped out of the sky three months ago, I wouldn't have known. The only things I noticed were silver bracelets on women's wrists and popsicle sticks in potted rubber plants. There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night. No car, no car stereo, no silver bracelets, no shuffling, no dark blue tweed suits. My world foreshortened, flattening into a credit card. Seen head on, things seemed merely skewed, but from the side the view was virtually meaningless–a one-dimensional wafer. Everything about me may have been crammed in there, but it was only plastic. Indecipherable except to some machine. My first circuit must have been wearing thin. My real memories were receding into planar projection, the screen of consciousness losing all identity. Haruki Murakami

Sorel's basic character flaws had all cemented by the age of fifteen, a fact which further elicited my sympathy. To have all the building blocks of your life in place by that age was, by any standard, a tragedy. It was as good as sealing yourself into a dungeon. Walled in, with nowhere to go but your own doom. Walls. A world completely surrounded by walls. Haruki Murakami

Nobody chooses to evolve. It's like floods and avalanches and earthquakes. You never know what's happening until they hit, then it's too late. Haruki Murakami

I study the chessboard and concede defeat." You can gain yourself in five moves" says the Colonel. "Worth fighting to the end. In five moves your opponent can err. No war is won or lost until the final battle is over. Haruki Murakami

Your "scared" and my "scared" are two different things.'' What's that supposed to mean?' she asked.' As you get older, you don't recover from things so easy.'' As you get older, you also get tired?'' Yeah, ' I said, 'you get tired. Haruki Murakami

I never had what it takes to make a first-rate anything.'' That's wrong, ' she declared. 'Everyone must have one thing that they can excel at. It's just a matter of drawing it out, isn't it?' But school doesn't know how to draw it out. It crushes the gift. It's no wonder most people never get to be what they want to be. They just get ground down. Haruki Murakami

Grandfather always said school's a place where they take sixteen years to wear down your brain. Grandfather hardly went to school either. Haruki Murakami

The early autumn sun glinted on the water, an enormous mirror ground to powder and scattered. Haruki Murakami

IT's not death. It's eternal life. And you get't'be yourself. Compared to that, this world isn't but a momentary fantasy. Please don't forget that. Haruki Murakami

They dig holes from time to time, ' the Colonel explains. 'It is probably for them what chess is for me. It has no special meaning, does not transport them anywhere. All of us dig at our own pure holes. We have nothing to achieve by our activities, nowhere to get to. Is there not something marvelous about this? We hurt no one and no one gets hurt. No victory, no defeat. Haruki Murakami

Well, the death of the body is the flight of the arrow. It's makin' a straight line for the brain. No dodgin' it not for anyone. People have't die, the body has't fall. Time is hurlin' that arrow forward. And yet, like I was sayin' thought goes on subdividin' that time for ever and ever. The paradox becomes real. The arrow never hits. In other words, immortality. Haruki Murakami

Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with. Haruki Murakami