I realize full well how hard it must be to go on living alone in a place from which someone has left you, but there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for. — Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (KNOPF.; First Edition edition 1997)
The most he could do was create a place where his heart–devoid now of any depth or weight–could be tethered, to keep from wandering aimlessly. — Haruki Murakami, from “Kino,” Men Without Women: Stories (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017)
The most he could do was create a place where his heart–devoid now of any depth or weight–could be tethered, to keep from wandering aimlessly. — Haruki Murakami, from “Kino,” Men Without Women: Stories (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017)
I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o’clock in the morning. — Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. (KNOPF.; First Edition edition 1997)
Between the end of that strange summer and the approach of winter, my life went on without change. Each day would dawn without incident and end as it had begun. — Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. (Harvill/Panther 1999:; Limited centenary ed edition 1999) Originally published 1994.
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.… Continue reading Haruki Murakami
The human heart is like a night bird. Silently waiting for something, and when the time comes, it flies straight toward it. — Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (Vintage, August 12, 2014)
The silence does not reside on the surface, but is held like smoke within. It is unfathomable, eternal, a disembodied vision cast upon a point in the void. — Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, translated by Alfred Birnbaum. (Prakash Books India; 3817th edition 1994) Originally published 1985.
Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’ like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s just a natural feeling. You’re not the person… Continue reading Haruki Murakami
Here she is, all mine, trying her best to give me all she can. How could I ever hurt her? But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair. ― Haruki Murakami, South of the… Continue reading Haruki Murakami
The Vale of Soul-Making 