Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Quotes

“two people can sleep in the same bed and still be alone when they close their eyes”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Everyone may be ordinary, but they're not normal.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it's time to drink.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in fight, searching the skies for dreams.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Deep rivers run quiet.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“I never trust people with no appetite. It's like they're always holding something back on you.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger, and, I believe, it is far more inconstant.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters. If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but loose you.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Open your eyes, train your ears, use your head. If a mind you have, then use it while you can.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“You got to know your limits. Once is enough, but you got to learn. A little caution never hurt anyone. A good woodsman has only one scar on him. No more, no less.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Genius or fool, you don't live in the world alone. You can hide underground or you can build a wall around yourself, but somebody's going to come along and screw up the works.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“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, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Everything, everything seemed once-upon-a-time.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“You're wrong. The mind is not like raindrops. It does not fall from the skies, it does not lose itself among other things. If you believe in me at all, then believe this: I promise you I will find it. Everything depends on this."

"I believe you," she whispers after a moment. "Please find my mind.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“I've always liked libraries. They're quiet and full of books and full of knowledge.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else. I'd move to Casablanca, open a bar, and I'd meet Ingrid Bergman. Or more realistically - whether actually more realistic or not - I'd tune in on a better life, something more suited to my true self. Toward that end, I had to undergo training. I read The Greening of America, and I saw Easy Rider three times. But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Most human activities are predicated on the assumption that life goes on. If you take that premise away, what is there left?”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“It's like a kid standing at the window watching the rain.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Huge organizations and me don't get along. They're too inflexible, waste too much time, and have too many stupid people.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“What was lost was lost. There was no retrieving it, however you schemed, no returning to how things were, no going back.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“But didn't you say you were satisfied with your life?"

"Word games," I dismissed. "Every army needs a flag.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“That's wrong," she declared. "Everyone must have one thing that they can excel at. It's just a matter of drawing it out, isn't it? But school doesn't know how to draw it out. It crushes the gift. It's no wonder most people never get to be what they want to be. They just get ground down.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“The best musicians transpose consciousness into sound; painters do the same for color and shape.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't going anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.

Was that so depressing?

Who knows? Maybe that was 'despair.' What Turgenev called 'disillusionment.' Or Dostoyevsky, 'hell.' Or Somerset Maugham, 'reality.' Whatever the label, I figured it was me.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“How can the mind be so imperfect?" she says with a smile.

I look at my hands. Bathed in the moonlight, they seem like statues, proportioned to no purpose.

"It may well be imperfect," I say, "but it leaves traces. And we can follow those traces, like footsteps in the snow."

"Where do the lead?"

"To oneself," I answer. "That's where the mind is. Without the mind, nothing leads anywhere."

I look up. The winter moon is brilliant, over the Town, above the Wall.

"Not one thing is your fault," I comfort her.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World