Quotes & Sayings About Dreams Murakami

People with dark hearts have dark dreams. Those whose hearts are even darker can't dream at all. — Haruki Murakami

Don't tell me anymore. You should have your dream, as the old woman told you to. I understand how you feel, but if you put those feelings into words they will turn into lies. (from Thailand) — Haruki Murakami

Dreaming is the day job of novelists, but sharing our dreams is a still more important task for us. We cannot be novelists without this sense of sharing something. — Haruki Murakami

Have your dream ... What you need now more than anything is discipline. Cast off mere words. Words turn into stone. (from Thailand) — Haruki Murakami

The world's crawling with stupid,
innocent girls, and I'm just one of them, self-consciously
chasing after dreams that'll never come true. I should shut the
piano lid and come down off the stage. Before it's too late. — Haruki Murakami

I have these realistic dreams and snap wide awake in the middle of the night. And for a while I can't work out what's real and what isn't ... That kind of feeling. Do you have any idea what I'm saying? — Haruki Murakami

The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time. — Haruki Murakami

Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in fight, searching the skies for dreams. — Haruki Murakami

If only I could fall
sound asleep and wake up in my old reality! — Haruki Murakami

Haven't you offered up some part of your Self to someone (or something), and taken on a "narrative" in return? Haven't we entrusted some part of our personality to some greater System or Order? And if so, has not that System at some stage demanded of us some kind of "insanity"? Is the narrative you now possess really and truly your own? Are your dreams really your own dreams? Might not they be someone else's visions that could sooner or later turn into nightmares? — Haruki Murakami

I don't dream. Come to think of it, i haven't had any dreams in a long time. — Haruki Murakami

I don't know if I have the strength to care for Yukiko and the children, I thought. No more visions can help me, weaving special dreams just for me. As far as the eye can see, the void is simply that - a void. I've been in that void before and forced myself to adjust. And now, finally, I end up where I began and I'd better get used to it. No one will weave dreams for me - it is my turn to weave dreams for others. That's what I have to do. Such dreams may have no power, but if my own life is to have any meaning at all, that is what I have to do.
Probably. — Haruki Murakami

A question.
So what are people supposed to do if they want to avoid a collision (thud!) but still lie in the field, enjoying the clouds drifting by, listening to the grass grow - not thinking, in other words? Sound hard? Not at all. Logically, it's easy. C'est simple. The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams, and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time.
In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly any collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites.
Reality, reality. — Haruki Murakami

People with dark souls have nothing but dark dreams. People with really dark souls do nothing but dream. — Haruki Murakami

It's just like Yeats said. In dreams begin responsibilities. Flip this around and you could say that where there's no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise. — Haruki Murakami

They say it's a dangerous experiment to include dreams (actual dreams or otherwise) in the fiction you write. Only a handful of writers - and I'm talking the most talented - are able to pull off the irrational synthesis you find in dreams. — Haruki Murakami

I thought if I were beautiful enough, all my dreams would come true. But you don't steady beautiful forever; one day you wake up and it's gone, and then where are you? Dreams are made with blood and sweat and tears. — Ryu Murakami

I sometimes wish I could go off in search of something," he declared, "but before getting even that far, I myself wouldn't have the slightest idea what to search for. Now my father, he's someone who's been searching for something all his life. He's still searching today. Ever since I was a little boy, my father's told me about the white sheep that came to him in his dreams. So I always thought that's what life is like. An ongoing search. — Haruki Murakami

You're afraid of imagination and even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the resposibility that begins in dreams. But you have to sleep and dreams are a part of sleep. When you're awake you can suppress imagination but you can't supress dreams. — Haruki Murakami

In dreams lie responsibilities. — Haruki Murakami

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.
Yet the fact that the cow chose me to obtain her pliers changes everything. This plunges me into a whole universe of alternative considerations. And in this universe of alternative considerations, the major problem is that everything becomes protracted and complex. I ask the cow, "Why do you want pliers?" And the cow answers, "I'm really hungry." So I ask, "Why do you need pliers if you're hungry?" The cow answers, "To attach them to branches of the peach tree." I ask, "Why a peach tree?" To which the cow replies, "Well, that's why I traded away my fan, isn't it?" And so on and so forth. The thing is never resolved. I begin to resent the cow, and the cow begins to resent me. That's a worm's eye view of its universe. — Haruki Murakami

I think people who share my dreams can enjoy reading my novels. And that's a wonderful thing. I said that myths are like a reservoir of stories, and if I can act as a similar kind of "reservoir," albeit a modest one, that would make me very happy. — Haruki Murakami

The scent of the sea and the burning asphalt being carried on the southerly wind made me think of summers past. The warmth of a girl's skin, old rock n' roll, button-down shirts right out of the wash, the smell of cigarettes smoked in the pool locker room, faint premonitions, everyone's sweet, limitless summer dreams. And then one year(when was it?), those dreams didn't come back. — Haruki Murakami

Dreams are things from the past. They aren't from the future. That wasn't you imprisoned there. You imprison your dreams. You understand?
Yeah, I'd say. But I wasn't convinced. — Haruki Murakami

It is all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to Imagine. In dreams begin responsibilities. — Haruki Murakami

I was impressed by the variety of dreams and goals that life could offer. — Haruki Murakami

That is dreamreading. As the birds leave south or north in their season, the Dreamreader has dreams to read. — Haruki Murakami

Even so, there were times I saw freshness and beauty. I could smell the air, and I really loved rock 'n' roll. Tears were warm, and girls were beautiful, like dreams. I liked movie theaters, the darkness and intimacy, and I liked the deep, sad summer nights. — Haruki Murakami

You sit at the edge of the world,
I am in a crater that's no more.
Words without letters
Standing in the shadow of the door.
The moon shines down on a sleeping lizard,
Little fish rain from the sky.
Outside the window there are soldiers,
steeling themselves to die.
(Refrain)
Kafka sits in a chair by the shore,
Thinking for the pendulum that moves the world, it seems.
When your heart is closed,
The shadow of the unmoving Sphinx,
Becomes a knife that pierces your dreams.
The drowning girl's fingers
Search for the entrance stone, and more.
Lifting the hem of her azure dress,
She gazes
at Kafka on the shore — Haruki Murakami

I write weird stories. I don't know why I like weirdness so much. Myself, I'm a very realistic person. I don't trust anything New Age
or reincarnation, dreams, Tarot, horoscopes. I don't trust anything like that at all. I wake up at 6 in the morning and go to bed at 10, jogging every day and swimming, eating healthy food. I'm very realistic. But when I write, I write weird. That's very strange. When I'm getting more and more serious, I'm getting more and more weird. When I want to write about the reality of society and the world, it gets weird. Many people ask me why, and I can't answer that. But I recognized when I was interviewing those 63 ordinary people
they were very straightforward, very simple, very ordinary, but their stories were sometimes very weird. That was interesting. — Haruki Murakami

It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. — Haruki Murakami

They put up with such strenuous training, and where did their thoughts, their hopes and dreams, disappear to? When people pass away, do their thoughts just vanish? — Haruki Murakami

In these dreams, I'm there, implicated in some ongoing circumstance. All indications are that I belong to this dream continuity. — Haruki Murakami

In dreams begin responsibilities.
~page 132 — Haruki Murakami

Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn't control you
you should control them. — Haruki Murakami

Dreams are the kind of things you can borrow and lend out. — Haruki Murakami

Tell her the Town told you to come read old dreams. — Haruki Murakami

It had been a long time since I felt the fragrance of summer: the scent of the ocean, a distant train whistle, the touch of a girl's skin, the lemony perfume of her hair, the evening wind, faint glimmers of hope, summer dreams.
But none of these were the way they once had been; they were all somehow off, as if copied with tracing paper that kept slipping out of place."
-from "Hear the Wind Sing — Haruki Murakami

Am I happy? If you asked me this, I'd have to say, 'Yeah, I guess.' Because dreams are, after all, just that: dreams. — 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

So many dreams, so many disappointments, so many promises. And in the end, they all just vanish. — Haruki Murakami

Am I happy? All I can say is I guess so. That's pretty much the way it is with dreams. — Haruki Murakami

Let her be spared from anguished dreams, I found myself hoping. — Haruki Murakami

No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us - that's snatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence.
I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do. To dream, to live in the world of dreams - just as Sumire said. But it doesn't last forever. Wakefulness always comes to take me back. — Haruki Murakami

The whiff of ocean on the southern breeze and the smell of burning asphalt brought back memories of summers past. It had seemed as though those sweet dreams of summer would last forever: the warmth of a girl's skin, an old rock 'n' roll song, freshly washed button-down shirt, the odor of cigarette smoke in a pool changing room, a fleeting premonition. Then one summer (when had it been?) the dreams had vanished, never to return. — Haruki Murakami

In dreams begins responsiblities. — Haruki Murakami

You're wasting your life being involved with me."
"I'm not wasting anything."
"But I might never recover. Will you wait for me forever? Can you wait 10 years, 20 years?"
"You're letting yourself be scared by too many things," I said. "The dark, bad dreams, the power of the dead. You have to forget them. I'm sure you'll get well if you do."
"If I can," said Naoko, shaking her head.
"If you can get out of this place, will you live with me?" I asked.
"Then I can protect you from the dark and from bad dreams. Then you'd have me instead of Reiko to hold you when things got difficult."
Naoko pressed still more firmly against me.
"That would be wonderful," she said. — Haruki Murakami

I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do. — Haruki Murakami

Strictly speaking, it might not be a dream. It was reality, but a reality imbued with all the qualities of a dream. A different sphere of reality, where - at a special time and place - imagination had been set free. — Haruki Murakami