Haruki Murakami’s “Kafka on the Shore” Quotes (83 Quotes)

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.

Time came slowly and passed slowly, so leisurely that at times he could swear it had stealthily doubled back on itself.

Time expands, then contracts, all in tune with the stirrings of the heart.

Time passes slowly. Nobody says a word, everyone lost in quiet reading. One person sits at a desk jotting down notes, but the rest are sitting there silently, not moving, totally absorbed. Just like me.

Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to sleep through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there- to the edge of the world. There's something you can't do unless you get there.

What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.

When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.

When I wake up, my pillow's cold and damp with tears. But tears for what? I have no idea.

When someone is trying very hard to get something, they don't. And when they're running away from something as hard as they can, it usually catches up with them.

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...

You can't look too far ahead. Do that and you'll lose sight of what you're doing and stumble. I'm not saying you should focus solely on the details right in front of you, mind you. You've got to look ahead a bit or else you'll bump into something. You've got to conform to the proper order and at the same time keep an eye out for what's ahead. That's critical, no matter what you're doing.

Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That's it. That's my heart.

A strange, terrific force unlike anything I've ever experienced is sprouting in my heart, taking root there, growing. Shut up behind my rib cage, my warm heart expands and contracts independent of my will--over and over.

Each person feels pain in his own way, each has his own scars.

If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of - that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I feel that encouraging. Do you know what I'm getting at?

Nakata's empty inside... Do you know what it means to be completely empty? Being empty is like a vacant house. An unlocked, vacant house. Anybody can come in, anytime they want. That's what scares me the most

The weather service reported that there weren't any atmospheric conditions present that might have led to fish raining from the sky.

A theory is a battlefield in your head.

Even chance meetings are the result of karma… Things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there's no such thing as coincidence.

If you think God's there, He is. If you don't, He isn't. And if that's what God's like, I wouldn't worry about it.

Our responsibility begins with our imagination.

There's an essential order you have to follow in everything. It's a way of showing respect, following everything in the correct order.

Ang mga alaala ang nagbibigay init sa iyong kalooban, ngunit ito rin ang makakapagpawasak sayo.

Everything in life is a metaphor.

If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you

People are by and large a product of where they were born and raised. How you think and feel's always linked to the lie of the land, the temperature. The prevailing winds, even.

Things outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you're stepping into the labyrinth inside.

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's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of,one you haven't seen in a long time.

For every theory there has to be counterevidence--otherwise science wouldn't progress.

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

People soon get tired of things that aren't boring, but not of what is boring.

This is the extent of his knowledge of the sea: it was very big, it was salty, and fish lived there.

Artists are those who can evade the verbose.

From my own experience, when someone is trying very hard to get something, they don't. And when they're running away from something as hard as they can, it usually catches up with them. I'm generalizing, of course.

I'll never see them again. I know that. And they know that. And knowing this, we say farewell.

Perhaps most people in the world aren't trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It's all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real pickle. You'd better remember that. People actually prefer not being free?

This place is too calm, too natural--too complete. I don't deserve it. At least not yet.

As long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in the end, changed into something else. It always happens, sooner or later.

Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story

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.

Reality's just the accumulation of ominous prophecies come to life. All you have to do is open a newspaper on any given day to weigh the good news versus the bad news, and you'll see what I mean.

As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around.

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

In dreams begins responsiblities.

Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.

Becoming a different person might be hard, but taking on a different name is a cinch.

Her smile steps offstage for a moment, then does an encore, all while I'm dealing with my blushing face.

In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion.

Symbolism and meaning are two separate things. I think she found the right words by bypassing procedures like meaning and logic. She captured words in a dream, like delicately catching hold of a butterfly's wings as it flutters around. Artists are those who can evade the verbose.

Beethoven, he learned, was a proud man who believed absolutely in his own abilities and never bothered to flatter the nobility. Believing that art itself, and the proper expression of emotions, was the most SUBLIME thing in the world, he thought political power and wealth only served one purpose: to make art possible.