Ryu Murakami Quotes

Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.

... The type of loneliness where you need to keep struggling to accept a situation is fundamentally different than the sort you know you'll get through if you just hang in there

Everybody wants to talk about themselves, and everybody wants to hear everybody else's story, so we take turns playing reporter and celebrity.

She's like smoke:you think you're seeing her clearly enough,but when you reach for her there's nothing there

They don't realise that they've changed; they think it's the world that changed.

People who love horror films are people with boring lives... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news.

Just before I fell asleep, I had a moment of panic ...

Malevolence is born of negative feelings like loneliness and sadness and anger. It comes from an emptiness inside you that feels as if it's been carved out with a knife, an emptiness you're left with when something very important has been taken away from you

The world's worst flavor combination was mango and menthol.

It was the face of a human being who’d been constructed exclusively of wounds. Not time or history or ambition, nothing but wounds. The face of a person who could probably kill someone without feeling anything whatsoever.

TV sounds are all the same; there's no difference between the sound of the wind in Northern Ireland and the wind on a Polynesian island.

After hanging up the phone Aoyama sank back back on the sofa feeling like a balloon in a warm blue sky.

I'm sure we've all experienced really malevolent feelings once or twice in our lives, the desire to kill somebody,say.but there's always a braking mechanism somewhere along the line that stop us.

there's always something in miso soup

Who knew there were still people like that in this world, though? Everybody wants to talk about themselves, and everybody wants to hear everybody else's story, so we take turns playing reporter and celebrity. 'It must have made you very sad when your own father raped you - can you describe some of your feelings at the time? Yes, I wept and wept, wonder why something like this had to happen to me'. It's like that. Everyone's running around comparing wounds, like bodybuilders showing off their muscles. And what's really unbelievable is that they really believe they can heal the wounds like that, just by putting them on display.

Sometimes you can remember everything about an old friend, down to minor details about his behaviour, but for the life of you you can't picture his face.

I don't need to eat the stuff now because now I'm here-right in the middle of it!The soup I ordered in Colorado had all these little slices of vegetables and things, which at the time just looked like kitchen scrapings to me. But now I'm in the miso soup myself,just like those bits of vegetable. I'm floating around in this giant bowl of it, and that's good enough for me.

Od svih žena koje možete sresti u Kobuki-čou, vrsta kojoj je pripadala Maki bila je dno dna, ako mene pitate. Neprivlačne, iskompleksirane i glupe kao noć, ali zbog najgoreg mogućeg vaspitanja nesvesne čak i svog neznanja. Ubeđene u to da su stvorene da rade na nekom luksuznom mestu i da žive bolji život, te podjednako snažno uverene u to da su za njihov neuspeh krivi drugi. Zavide svima i zbog toga su rešene da ih krive za sve. Celog života su omalovažavane, te stoga uverene da nema ničeg lošeg u takvom ophođenju s drugima, Spremne da namerno govore stvari koje će povrediti druge.

Within two or three years of World War II's end, starvation had been basically eliminated in Japan, and yet the Japanese had continued slaving away as if their lives depend on it. Why? To create a more abundant life? If so, where was the abundance? Where were the luxurious living spaces? Eyesores dominated the scenery wherever you went, and people still crammed themselves into packed commuter trains each morning, submitting to conditions that would be fatal for any other mammal. Apparently what the Japanese wanted wasn't a better life, but more things.

But why is it that if you imagine a baby who stinks to high heaven. But why is it that if you imagine a baby smells of milk, for example, you can't help smiling? Why is there such agreement about the world what is or isn't foul smell? Who decided what smells bad? Is it impossible that somewhere in this world there are people who, if they sat next to a homeless fellow, they'd urge to snuggle up to him, but if they sat next to a baby they's get an urge to kill it?

Back then, Japan as a nation aspired to something in which each individual seemed invested. And that "something"wasn't just about economic growth, or transforming the yen into an international currency. It had more to do with accessing information. Information was indispensable, and not only as a means of obtaining necessities like food and clothing and medicine. Within two or three years of World War II's end, starvation had been basically eliminated in Japan, and yet the Japanese had continued slaving away as if their lives depended on it. Why? To create a more abundant life? If so, where was the abundance? Where were the luxurious living spaces? Eyesores dominated the scenery wherever you went, and people still crammed themselves into packed commuter trains each morning, submitting to conditions that would be fatal for any other mammal. Apparently what the Japanese wanted wasn't a better life, but more things. And things, of course, were a form of information. But as things became readily available and information began to flow smoothly, the original aspiration got lost in the shuffle. People were infected with the concept that happiness was something outside themselves, and a new and powerful form of loneliness was born. Mix loneliness with stress and enervation, and all sorts of madness can occur. Anxiety increases, and in order to obliterate the anxiety people turn to extreme sex, violence, and even murder.