Delve into the world of Japenese writer, Haruki Murakami. After college, Murakami owned a small jazz bar in Tokyo for seven years and his passion for good music is apparent. Here’s a discovery playlist created from mentions in his work.
Author Archives: jschuler
Haruki Murakami – Hear the Wind Sing
“Civilization is communication. When that which should be expressed and transmitted is lost, civilization comes to and end. Click … OFF.”
“Looking at the ocean makes me miss people, and hanging out with people makes me miss the ocean.”
“I didn’t know it would get this hot,” she said. “It’s hot as hell.”
“Sounds like you’ve been there.”
“I heard it from someone. They make it hotter and hotter till you think you’ll go crazy; then they move you someplace cooler for a while. Then when you’ve recovered a little they move you back again.”
“So hell is like a sauna.”
“Yeah, more or less. But a few can’t recover and go totally bonkers.”
“So what happens to them?”
“They get sent up to heaven, where they’re forced to paint the walls. You see, the walls in heaven have to be kept a perfect white. The slightest smudge is unacceptable. It’s an image thing. As a result, they have to keep painting from dawn till dusk every day. It messes up their respiratory systems big time.”
“I know. But I’m like an old jalopy. Fix one thing and another breaks down.”
“Sort of,” I said. “But try to think it through a little further. All of us are laboring under the same conditions. It’s like we’re all flying in the same busted airplane. Sure, some of us are luckier than others. Some are tough and some are weak. Some are rich and some are poor. But no one’s superman – in that way, we’re all weak. If we own things, we’re terrified we’ll lose them; if we’ve got nothing we worry it’ll be that way forever. We’re all the same. If you catch on to that early enough, you can try to make yourself stronger, even if only a little. It’s okay to fake it. Right? There are no truly strong people. Only people who pretend to be strong.”
“What would be the point of writing a novel about things everyone knows?”
“Lies are terrible things. One could say that the greatest sins afflicting modern society are the proliferation of lies and silence. We lie through our teeth, then swallow our tongues.”
“All things pass. None of us can manage to hold on to anything. In the way, we live our lives.”
Preoccupations – Degraded
Haruki Murakami – Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Birthday Girl
“No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That’s all.”
New York Mining Disaster
“There’s at least one good thing about TV,” he said after a while. “You can shut it off whenever you like. And nobody complains.”
Airplane
“I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a awhile.”
Hunting Knife
“Everybody checks out eventually,” my wife said. ” You can’t live like this forever.”
Man-Eating-Cats
“Newspapers are all the same, no matter where you go,” she finally announced. “They never tell you what you really want to know”.
A “Poor Aunt” Story
“Beginnings are always like this. One minute everything exists, the next minute everything is lost.”
Tony Takitani
“In other words, Shozaburo Takitani was now alone in this world. This was no great shock to him, however, nor did it make him feel particularly sad or miserable. He did, of course, experience some sense of absence, but he felt that, eventually, life had to turn out more or less like this.”
“Like a mist in the breeze, his memories changed shape, and with each change they grew fainter. Each memory was now the shadow of a shadow of a shadow.”
Firefly
“Once something happens, that’s all she wrote – you can never change things back to the way they were.”
“Everyone is looking for something from someone.”
Chance Traveler
“If you have to choose between something that has form and something that doesn’t, go for the one without form. That’s my rule.”
Hanalei Bay
“There are only three ways to get along with a girl: one, shut up and listen to what she has to say; two, tell her you like what she’s wearing; and three, treat her to really good food.”
Where I’m Likely to Find It
“As I’m sure you know, water always picks the shortest route to flow down. Sometimes, though, the shortest route is actually formed by the water. The human thought process is a lot like that.”
The Kidney – Shaped Stone that Moves Every Day
“I may be the type who manages to grab all the pointless things in life but lets the really important things slip away.”
“Your work should be an act of love, not a marriage of convenience.”
“I can’t have a serious relationship with anybody. Not just you: anybody,” she said. “I want to concentrate completely on what I’m doing now. If I were living with somebody – if I had a deep emotional involvement with somebody – I might not be able to do that. So I want to keep things the way they are.”
“What matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. And it always has to be the frist time and the last.”
Haruki Murakami – Men Without Women
” Music has that power to revive memories, sometimes so intensely that they hurt. ”
” Dreams are the kind of things you can borrow and lend out. ”
” There are two types of drinkers: those who drink to enhance their personalities, and those who sought to take something away. ”
