Haruki Murakami

Some people can work their butts off and never get what they're aiming for while others can get it without any effort at all.

I'm the kind of person who has to totally commit to whatever I do.

There are lots of things we never understand, no matter how many years we put on, no matter how much experience we accumulate.

You don't have to judge the whole world by your own standards. Not everybody is like you, you know.

When it's all over, it'll seem like a dream.

Everything in life is a metaphor.

A person’s destiny is something you look back at afterwards, not something to be known in advance.

People fall in love without reason, without even wanting to. You can't predict it. That's love.

As long as an individual's alive, he will undergo experience in some form or other, and those experiences are stored up instant by instant. To stop experiencin' is to die.

I never could stand being forced to do something I didn't want to do at a time I didn't want to do it. Whenever I was able to do something I liked to do, though, when I wanted to do it, and the way I wanted to do it, I'd give it everything I had.

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.

One impossible day, of an impossible month, of an impossible year.

Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents.

I'm not a fast reader. I like to linger over each sentence, enjoying the style. If I don't enjoy the writing, I stop.

Maybe the only thing I can definitely say about is this: That’s life. Maybe the only thing we can do is accept it, without really knowing what’s going on.

Nobody's going to win all the time. On the highway of life you can't always be in the fast lane.

She lived frugally, but her meals were the only things on which she deliberately spent her money. She never compromised on the quality of her groceries, and drank only good-quality wines.

I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.

Even if you managed to escape from one cage, weren't you just in another, larger one?

I used to think the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time. But it's not like that. It happens overnight.

If you want everything to be nice and straight all the time, then go live in a world made with a triungular ruler.