Haruki Murakami Concept Quotes & Sayings

When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully. — W. Somerset Maugham

You did it, didn't you?" Baz whispers. "You defeated the Humdrum. You saved the day, you courageous fuck. You absolute nightmare. — Rainbow Rowell

Time does not expand."
"But time is actually expanding, isn't it? You yourself said that time adds up."
"That's only because time needed for transit has decreased. The sum total of time doesn't change. It's only that you can see more movies. — Haruki Murakami

Which way will the sunflower turn surrounded by millions of suns? — Allen Ginsberg

It wasn't the best choice. I made a mistake. It was not prohibited. It was not in any way disallowed. And as I have said and as now has come out, my predecessors did the same thing and many other people in the government. — Hillary Clinton

You are a major dimwit. Is your brain made out of jello, you spineless twit? A leaf? What do you think I am, one of those magical raccoons? I'm a concept, get it? Con-cept! Concepts and raccoons aren't exactly the same, now are they? What a dumb thing to say ... — Haruki Murakami

I was reduced to pure concept. My flesh had dissolved; my form had dissipated. I floated in space. Liberated of my corporeal being, but without dispensation to go anywhere else.I was adrift in the void. Somewhere across the fine line separating nightmare from reality. — Haruki Murakami

You can put a girlfriend on a motorcycle, yes, but what about your children and your bridesmaids, and your mother-in-law? — Anne Fortier

Hodel saw it through her sister's eyes: women were created to be in every way partners, not mindless slaves or brainless doormats, but helpers, collaborators, equals. And that was a thing of great beauty — Alexandra Silber

Globalization was supposed to break down barriers between continents and bring all peoples together. But what kind of globalization do we have with over one billion people on the planet not having safe water to drink? — Mikhail Gorbachev

Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek. — Haruki Murakami

But it has finally hit me: she is neither a concept nor a symbol nor a metaphor. She actually exists: she has warm flesh and a spirit that moves. I never should have lost sight of that warmth and that movement. — Haruki Murakami

February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre. — Margaret Atwood

Necessity is an independent concept. It has a different structure from logic, morals, or meaning. Its function lies entirely in the role it plays. What doesn't play a role shouldn't exist. What necessity requires does need to exist. That's what you call dramaturgy. — Haruki Murakami

In every novel, I write about something - a place, an experience, an emotion - with which I'm intimately familiar, but it's also crucial to me that I take on challenges. If write only inside my comfort zone, I'll suffocate. — Julia Glass

Listen--God only exists in people's minds. Especially in Japan, God's always been kind of a flexible concept. Look at what happened after the war. Douglas MacArthur ordered the divine emperor to quit being God, and he did, making a speech saying he was just an ordinary person. So after 1946 he wasn't God anymore. That's what Japanese gods are like--they can be tweaked and adjusted. Some American comping on a cheap pipe gives the order and presto change-o--God's no longer God. A very postmodern kind of thing. If you think God's there, He is. If you don't, He isn't.
~pages 286-287 — Haruki Murakami

Had I done the right thing by not telling her? Maybe not. Who on earth wanted the right thing anyway? Yet what meaning could there be if nothing was right? If nothing was fair? Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. — Haruki Murakami

The process of dehuminazing the locals was under way, and it had very little to do with veracity. The Puritan narratives would continue that process and bring the devil into the mix. At least John Smith didn't think Satan was involved. — Thomas C. Foster

You act like a team player,you be nice to everyone for your entire life,then you die. — Stephan Pastis

Maybe time is nothing at all like a straight line. Perhaps it's shaped like a twisted doughnut. But for tens of thousands of years, people have probably been seeing time as a straight line that continues on forever. And that's the concept they based their actions on. And until now they haven't found anything inconvenient or contradictory about it. So as an experiential model, it's probably correct. — Haruki Murakami

Tengo had no particular desire for other women. What he wanted most of all was uninterrupted free time. If he could have sex on a regular basis, he had nothing more to ask of a woman. He did not welcome the unavoidable responsibility that came with dating a woman his own age, falling in love, and having a sexual relationship. The psychological stages through which one had to pass, the hints regarding various possibilities, the unavoidable collisions of expectations: Tengo hoped to get by without taking on such burdens.
The concept of duty always made Tengo cringe. He had lived his life thus far skillfully avoiding any position that entailed responsibility, and to do so, he was prepared to endure most forms of deprivation. — Haruki Murakami