Norwegian Wood Love Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Norwegian Wood Love. Here they are! All 100 of them:

I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it -- to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I have a million things to talk to you about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. That's what I think. It's just a form of sincerity.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Watanabe: Wow, and did your search pay off? M: That's the hard part. I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
How much do you love me?' Midori asked. 'Enough to melt all the tigers in the world to butter,' I said.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that eighteen years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn't give a damn about the scenery that day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us together, and then about myself again. It was the age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications. The scenery was the last thing on my mind.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn't begin at all.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Loving another person is a wonderful thing, and if that love is sincere, no one ends up tossed into a labyrinth. You have to have more faith in yourself.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had to learn. What I learned from Naoko's death was this: no truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Why?" she screamed. "Are you crazy? You know the English subjunctive, you understand trigonometry, you can read Marx, and you don't know the answer to something as simple as that? Why do you even have to ask? Why do you have to make a girl SAY something like this? I like you more than I like him, that's all. I wish I had fallen in love with somebody a little more handsome, of course. But I didn't. I fell in love with you!
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough." "Waiting for perfect love?" "No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don't want it anymore and throw it out the window. That's what I'm looking for.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
No truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty five days a year, I was still in elementary school at the time - fifth or sixth grade - but I made up my mind once and for all.” “Wow,” I said. “Did the search pay off?” “That’s the hard part,” said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. “I guess I’ve been waiting so long I’m looking for perfection. That makes it tough.” “Waiting for the perfect love?” “No, even I know better than that. I’m looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.” “I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement. “It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are time in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.” “Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?” “Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. “Now I see, Midori. What a fool I have been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate Mousse? Cheesecake?” “So then what?” “So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.” “Sounds crazy to me.” “Well, to me, that’s what love is…
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
What I feel for her is a wholly different emotion. It stands and walks on its own, living and breathing and throbbing and shaking me to the roots of my being.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
sometimes I think I've got this hard kernel in my heart, and nothing much can get inside it. I doubt if I can really love anybody.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Let me just tell you this, Watanabe," said Midori, pressing her cheek against my neck. "I'm a real, live girl, with real, live blood gushing through my veins. You're holding me in your arms and I'm telling you that I love you. I'm ready to do anything you tell me to do. I may be a little bit mad, but I'm a good girl, and honest, and I work hard, I'm kind of cute, I have nice boobs, I'm a good cook, and my father left me a trust fund. I mean, I'm a real bargain, don't you think? If you don't take me, I'll end up going somewhere else.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
She knew that my memories of her would fade. Which is precisely why she begged me never to forget her, to remember that she had existed. The thought fills me with an almost unbearable sorrow. Because Naoko never loved me.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
She was seriously in love, but she never made demands.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Love with complications. Scenery was the last thing on my mind.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I don't know, it's stupid being 20," she said. "I'm just not ready. It feels weird. Like somebody's pushing me from behind.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Hatsumi had a pretty good idea that Nagasawa was sleeping around, but she never complained to him. She was seriously in love with him, but she never made demands. 'I don't deserve a girl like Hatsumi,' Nagasawa once said to me. I had to agree with him.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I'd like to have a good long talk with you once you've calmed down. Please call me soon. Happy Birthday.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I have always loved Naoko, and I still love her. But there is a decisive finality to what exists between Midori and me. It has an irresistible power that is bound to sweep me into the future. What I feel for Naoko is a tremendously quiet and gentle and transparent love, but what I feel for Midori is a wholly different emotion. It stands and walks on its own, living and breathing and throbbing and shaking me to the roots of my being.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Somewhere between 'not enough' and 'not at all.' I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it - to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once. But they never gave that to me. Never, not once.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It is like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. Things will go where they are supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it is time for them to be hurt. Life is like that.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
And worse, I was in love. Love with complications.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Nights without work I spent with whisky and books.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny and silly. From something like that or it doesn't begin at all.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn't begin at all.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Ci eravamo incontrati perché doveva succedere, e anche se non fosse stato quel giorno, prima o poi ci saremmo sicuramente incontrati da qualche altra parte.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Tell me something, Toru,” She said. “Do you love me?” “You know I do.” “Will you do me two favors?” “You can have up to three wishes, Madame.” Naoko smiled and shook her head.” No, two will do. One is for you to realize how grateful I am that you came to see me here. I hope you’ll understand how happy you’ve made me. I know it’s going to save me if anything will. I may not show it, but it’s true.” “I’ll come to see you again.” I said. “And what is the other wish?” “I want you always remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?” “Always,” I said. “I’ll always remember.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
My words did not seem to reach her. Or, if they did, she was unable to grasp their meaning.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
He couldn't change my mind about him, though. I went on loving him just the same, and I could never be interested in anyone else.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Then, all but instinctively, I took her in my arms. Pressed against me, her whole body trembling, she continued to cry without a sound.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
It must be a wonderful thing to be so sure that you love somebody.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I was at that age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications. Scenery was the last thing on my mind.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
To tell you the truth, though, I loved his weak side, too. I loved it as much as I loved his good side. There was absolutely nothing mean or sneaky about him. He was weak: that's all.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I don't know , sometimes I think I've got this hard kernel in my heart, and nothing much can get inside it. I doubt if I can really love anybody.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it - to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn’t begin at all.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
We couldn't bear to be apart. So if Kizuki had lived, I'm sure we would have been together, loving each other, and gradually growing unhappy." Unhappy? Why's that?" With her fingers, Naoko combed her hair back several times. She had taken her barrette off, which made the hair fall over her face when she dropped her head forward. Because we would have had to pay the world back what we owed it," she said, raising her eyes to mine. "The pain of growing up. We didn't pay when we should have, so now the bills are due. Which is why Kizuki did what he did, and why I'm here. We were like kids who grew up naked on a desert island. If we got hungry, we'd just pick a banana; if we got lonely, we'd go to sleep in each other's arms. But that kind of thing doesn't last forever. We grew up fast and had to enter society. Which is why you were so important to us. You were the link connecting us with the outside world. We were struggling through you to fit in with the outside world as best we could. In the end, it didn't work, of course." I nodded. I wouldn't want you to think that we were using you, though. Kizuki really loved you. It just so happened that our connection with you was our first connection with anyone else. And it still is. Kizuki may be dead, but you are still my only link with the outside world. And just as Kizuki loved you, I love you. We never meant to hurt you, but we probably did; we probably ended up making a deep wound in your heart. It never occurred to us that anything like that might happen.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Do you think you weren’t loved enough?” She tilted her head and looked at me. Then she gave a sharp, little nod. “Somewhere between ‘not enough’ and ‘not at all.’ I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it—to be fed so much love I couldn’t take any more. Just once. But they never gave that to me. Never, not once.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood (Vintage International))
You don't get it, do you? Person A understands Person B because the time is right for that to happen, not because Person B wants to be understood by Person A. (...) it's not a mistake, most people would call that love, if you think you want to understand me.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I'm not going to believe in any damned revolution. Love is all I'm going to believe in.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I miss her every now and then, but finally, she didn't move me. I don't know, sometimes I think I've got this hard kernel in my heart, and nothing much can get inside it.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
The things that his death gave rise to are still there, bright and clear, inside me, some of them even clearer than when they were new.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Some people get a kick out of reading railway timetables and that's all they do all day. Some people make huge model boats out of matchsticks. So what's wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?" "Kind of like a hobby?" she said, amused. "Yeah I guess you could call it a hobby. Most normal people would call it friendship or love or something, but if you want to call it a hobby, that's OK too.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Yo no soy tan fuerte. A mi me importa que me entiendan. Hay personas a quienes quiero comprender y quiero que me comprendan. Hasta cierto punto, pienso que es inevitable que el resto de la gnete no lo haga. Ya me he hecho a la idea. Así que no me ocurre lo mismo que a Nagasawa, a quien no le importa que no le entiendan.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
You know what I like best about porn cinemas?" "I couldn't begin to guess." "Whenever a sex scene starts, you can hear this "Gulp!' sound when everybody swallows all at once," said Midori. "I love that "Gulp!' It's so sweet!
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Like Naokuo, I'm not really sure what it means to love another person. Though she meant it a little differently. I do want to try my best though. I have to, or else I won't know where to go. Like you said before, Naoko and I have to save each other. It's the only was for us to be saved!
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Most of these university types are total phonies. They’re scared to death somebody’s gonna find they don’t know something. They all read the same books and they all throw around the same words, and they get off listening to John Coltrane and seeing Pasolini movies. You call that ‘revolution’? That does it for me, then. I’m not going to believe in any damned revolution. Love is all I’m going to believe in.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I don't deserve a girl like Hatsumi," Nagasawa once said to me. I had to agree with him.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I wish I had fallen in love with somebody a little more handsome, of course. But I didn't. I fell in love wit you.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
He couldn't change my mind about him, though. I went on loving him just the same, and I could never be interested in anyone else.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I was at that age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I still loved Naoko. Bent and twisted as that love might be, I did love her. Somewhere inside me, there was still preserved a broad, open space, untouched, for Naoko and no one else.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
You enjoy solitude?" she asked, leaning her cheek on her hand. "Traveling alone, eating alone, sitting off by yourself in lecture halls..." "Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment.” The tip of one earpiece in her mouth, sunglasses dangling down, she mumbled, "'Nobody likes being alone. I just hate to be disappointed.' You can use that line if you ever write your autobiography." "Thanks," I said. "Do you like green?" "Why do you ask?" "You're wearing a green polo shirt." "Not especially. I'll wear anything." "'Not especially. I'll wear anything.' I love the way you talk. Like spreading plaster nice and smooth. Has anybody ever told you that?" "Nobody," I said.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I know, too, why she asked me not to forget her. Naoko herself knew, of course. She knew that my memories of her would fade. Which is precisely why she begged me never to forget her, to remember that she had existed. The thought fills me with an almost unbearable sorrow. Because Naoko never loved me.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty five days a year, I was still in elementary school at the time - fifth or sixth grade - but I made up my mind once and for all.” -“Wow,” I said. “Did the search pay off?” “That’s the hard part,” said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. “I guess I’ve been waiting so long I’m looking for perfection. That makes it tough.” -“Waiting for the perfect love?” “No, even I know better than that. I’m looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.” -“I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement. “It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are time in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.” -“Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?” “Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. “Now I see, Midori. What a fool I have been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate Mousse? Cheesecake?” -“So then what?” “So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.” -“Sounds crazy to me.” “Well, to me, that’s what love is…
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
What human being doesn't hesitate and feel hurt?" Hatsumi demanded. "Are you trying to say that you have never felt those things?" "Of course I have, but I've disciplined myself to where I can minimize them. Even a rat will choose the least painful route if you shcok him enough." "But rats don't fall in love.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I had learned one thing from Kizuki's death, and I believed that I had made it a part of myself in the form of a philosophy: "Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life." By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had to learn. What I learned from Naoko's death was this: no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity , no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
What I feel for Naoko is a tremendously quiet and gentle and transparent love, but what I feel for Midori is a wholly different emotion. It stands and walks on its own, living and breathing and throbbing and shaking me to the roots of my being.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood (Vintage International))
Most of these student types are total frauds. They’re scared to death somebody’s gonna find out they don’t know something. They all read the same books and they all spout the same slogans, and they love listening to John Coltrane and seeing Pasolini movies. You call that a revolution? …Well if that’s a revolution, you can stick it.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Reiko set the ball on the ground and patted my knee. "Look," she said, "I'm not telling you to stop sleeping with girls. If you're O.K. with that, then it's OK. It's your life after all, it's something you have to decide. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't use yourself up in some unnatural form. Do you see what I'm getting at? It would be such a waste. The years nineteen and twenty are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older. It's true. So think carefully. If you want to take care of Naoko, take care of yourself too." I said I would think about it.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Oh boy," I said with a sigh, drinking down the last of my beer. "It must be a wonderful thing to be so sure that you love somebody.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
That does it for me, then. I’m not going to believe in any damned revolution. Love is all I’m going to believe in.” “Peace,” I said. “Peace,” said Midori.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood (Vintage International))
...我追求的是十分完美无缺的东西,所以才这么难。” “完美无缺的爱?” “不不。就算我再怎么样也不敢那么追求。我所求的只是容许我任性,百分之百的任性。比方说,我现在对你说想吃酥饼,你就什么也不顾地跑去买,气喘吁吁地跑回来递给我,说:'喏,绿子,这就是酥饼。' 可我却说:'我又懒得吃这玩意儿了!' 说着 '呼' 的一声从窗口扔出。这就是我所追求的。
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it – to be fed so much love I couldn't take it any more. Just once.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I didn’t know how to relate to other people. I didn’t know what it meant to love another person.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three chances in a lifetime, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one.No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I'm not the smartest girl in the world. If anything, I'm sort of on the stupid side, and old-fashioned. I couldn't care less about 'systems' and 'responsibility'. All I want is to get married and have a man I love hold me in his arms every night and make babies. That's plenty for me. It's all I want out of life.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Whatever,” said Nagasawa. “But Watanabe’s practically the same as me. He may be a nice guy, but deep down in his heart he’s incapable of loving anybody. There’s always some part of him somewhere that’s wide awake and detached. He just has that hunger that won’t go away. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood (Vintage International))
Pero te advierto que Watanabe es igual que yo. Amable y cariñoso, pero incapaz de amar a nadie con el corazón en la mano. Hay una parte de él que siempre está alerta, siente un ansia que lo devora. Lo sé de sobra.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Ok I'm not so smart I'm working class. But it's the working class that keeps the world running and it's the working class that get exploited. What kind revolution is it that just throws out big words that working class people can't understand. Revolution or not the working class will just keep on scraping a living in the same old shitholes I'm not going to believe in any damned revolution. Love is all I'm going to believe in. -- Midori
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Where was i now? I had no idea. No idea at all. Where was this place? All that flashed into my eyes were the countless shapes of people walking by to nowhere. Again and again I called out for Midori from the dead centre of this place that was no place.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
If you want to sleep with me, I don't mind. I've never slept with anybody, and I'm very fond of you, so if you want to make love to me, I don't mind at all. But marrying me is a whole different matter. If you marry me, you take on all my troubles, and they're a lot worse than you can imagine.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
As I held her and caressed her and kissed her naked flesh, I felt a strange and powerful awareness of the imbalance and awkwardness of the human body. Holding Naoko in my arms, I wanted to explain to her, "I am having sex with you now. I am inside you. But really this is nothing. It doesn't matter. It is nothing but the joining of two bodies. All we are doing is telling each other things that can only be told by the rubbing together of two imperfect lumps of flesh. By doing this, we are sharing our imperfection." But of course I could never have said such a thing with any hope of being understood. I just went on holding her tightly.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I learned from Naoko’s death was this: no truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood (Vintage International))
If you're in love with someone, can't you manage one way or another with her?" Hatsumi asked after a few moments' thought.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Loving another person is a wonderful thing, and if that love is sincere, no one ends up tossed in a labyrinth.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
You want to know why you felt that way about me even though you didn't love me.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
So after he died, I didn't know how to relate to other people. I didn't know what it means to love another person.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I went on loving him just the same, and I could never be interested in anyone else.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I love you," I said to her. "From the bottom of my heart. I don't ever want to let you go again. But there's nothing I can do. I can't make a move." "Because of her?" I nodded.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I loved Midori. And I had probably known as much for a while. I had just been avoiding the conclusion for a very long time.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I have always loved Naoko, and I still loved her. But there is a decisive finality to what exists between Midori and me.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
It was the age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I was not too crazy about sleeping with girls I didn't know. It was an easy way to take care of my sex drive of course, and I did enjoy all the holding and touching, but I hated the morning after. I'd wake up and find this strange girl sleeping next to me, and the room would reek of alcohol, and the bed and the lighting and the curtains had that special "love hotel" garishness, and my head would be in a hungover fog.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had to learn. What I learned from Naoko’s death was this: no truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning. Hearing
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood (Vintage International))
One guy yelled at me, 'You stupid bitch, how do you live like that with nothing in your brain?' Well, that did it. I wasn't going to put up with that. OK, so I'm not so smart. I'm working class. But it's the working class that keeps the world running, and it's the working classes that get exploited. What kind of revolution is it that just throws out big words that working-class people can't understand? What kind of crap social revolution is that? I mean, I'd like to make the world a better place, too. If somebody's really being exploited, we've got to put a stop to it. That's what I believe, and that's why I ask questions. (...) So that's when it hit me. These guys are fakes. All they've got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they're so proud of, while sticking their hands up their skirts.(...) They marry pretty wives who've never read Marx and have kids they give fancy new names to that are enough to make you puke. Smash what educational-industrial complex? Don't make me laugh! (...) They're scared to death somebody's gonna find out they don't know something. They all read the same books and they all spout the same slogans, and they love listening to John Coltrane and seeing Pasolini movies. You call that 'revolution'? (...) Revolution or not, the working class will just keep on scraping a living in the same old shitholes. And what is a revolution? It sure as hell isn't just changing the name on city hall. But those guys don't know that - those guys with their big words.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
I had learned one thing from Kizuki’s death, and I believed that I had made it a part of myself in the form of a philosophy: “Death is not the opposite of life but an innate part of life.” By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had to learn. What I learned from Naoko’s death was this: no truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood (Vintage International))
It’s true I’ve got a cold streak. I recognize that. But if they—my father and mother—had loved me a little more, I would have been able to feel more—to feel real sadness, for example.” “Do you think you weren’t loved enough?” She tilted her head and looked at me. Then she gave a sharp, little nod. “Somewhere between ‘not enough’ and ‘not at all.’ I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it—to be fed so much love I couldn’t take any more. Just once. But they never gave that to me. Never, not once. If I tried to cuddle up and beg for something, they’d just shove me away and yell at me. ‘No! That costs too much!’ It’s all I ever heard. So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I was still in elementary school at the time—fifth or sixth grade—but I made up my mind once and for all.” “Wow,” I said. “And did your search pay off?” “That’s the hard part,” said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. “I guess I’ve been waiting so long I’m looking for perfection. That makes it tough.” “Waiting for the perfect love?” “No, even I know better than that. I’m looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.” “I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement. “It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are times in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.” “Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?” “Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. ‘Now I see, Midori. What a fool I’ve been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate mousse? Cheesecake?’” “So then what?” “So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.” “Sounds crazy to me.” “Well, to me, that’s what love is. Not that anyone can understand me, though.” Midori gave her head a little shake against my shoulder. “For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn’t begin at all.” “I’ve never met a girl who thinks like you.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood (Vintage International))
I felt guilty that I hadn't thought of Kizuki right away, as if I had somehow abandoned him. Back in my room, though, I came to think of it this way: two and a half years have gone by since it happened, and Kizuki is still seventeen years old. Not that this means my memory of him has faded. The things that his death gave rise to are still there, bright and clear, inside me, some of them even clearer than when they were new. What I want to say is this: I'm going to turn twenty soon. Part of what Kizuki and I shared when we were sixteen and seventeen has already vanished, and no amount of crying is going to bring that back. I can't explain it any better than this, but I think that you can probably understand what I felt and what I am trying to say.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
Hey, there, Kizuki, I thought. Unlike you, I’ve chosen to live—and to live the best I know how. Sure, it was hard for you. What the hell, it’s hard for me. Really hard. And all because you killed yourself and left Naoko behind. But that’s something I will never do. I will never, ever turn my back on her. First of all, because I love her, and because I’m stronger than she is. And I’m just going to keep on getting stronger. I’m going to mature. I’m going to be an adult. Because that’s what I have to do. I always used to think I’d like to stay seventeen or eighteen if I could. But not anymore. I’m not a teenager anymore. I’ve got a sense of responsibility now. I’m not the same guy I was when we used to hang out together. I’m twenty now. And I have to pay the price to go on living.
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood (Vintage International))