Haruki Murakami | Multiple Book Highlights
Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 (released as a combined book)
We chucked the empty cans into the ocean, propped our backs against the embankment, pulled our coats over our heads, and took an hour-long nap. When I woke I was filled with an intense sense of being alive. It was weird—I had never felt that kind of energy before.
...the dim innermost corner of J’s Bar, killing time at the pinball machine, that piece of junk that offers dead time in return for small change.
It was a lonely season for me as well. When I returned to my room and undressed at the end of the day, my bones threatened to burst through my skin and fly away. As if some mysterious internal force were propelling me in the wrong direction, leading me toward another world.
Not a single person was trying to reach me, and even if they had been, they wouldn’t have said what I wanted to hear.
Each day was a carbon copy of the last. You needed a bookmark to tell one from the other.
On any given day, something can come along and steal our hearts. It may be any old thing: a rosebud, a lost cap, a favorite sweater from childhood, an old Gene Pitney record. A miscellany of trivia with no home to call their own. Lingering for two or three days, that something soon disappears, returning to the darkness. There are wells, deep wells, dug in our hearts. Birds fly over them.
A Wild Sheep Chase
- “Certainly. I get irritated, I get upset. Especially when I’m in a hurry. But I see it all as part of our training. To get irritated is to lose our way in life.”
Dance Dance Dance
A fat maid walked the halls with elephant strides, ponderously, ominously coughing.
“Dance,” said the Sheep Man. “Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougotta dance. Don’teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you’restuck. Sodon’tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou’re tired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, okay? Justdon’tletyourfeetstop.”
Even so, there were times that I saw freshness and beauty. I could smell the air, and I really loved rock ‘n’ roll. Tears were warm, and girls were beautiful, like dreams. I liked movie theaters, the darkness and intimacy, and I liked the deep, sad summer nights.
Men Without Women
Most of Tokai’s friends were married, with children. He’d visited their homes any number of times, but never once envied them.
His friends all insisted that, when all was said and done, having children was a wonderful thing, but he never could buy this sales pitch. They probably just wanted Tokai to shoulder the same burden they dragged around. They selfishly were convinced that everyone else in the world should be obliged to suffer the way they did.
At the risk of being misunderstood, I would call Tokai an affable person. He wasn’t a poor loser, had no inferiority complex or jealousy, no excessive biases or pride, no particular obsessions, wasn’t overly sensitive, had no steadfast political views.
He issues three key pieces of advice: take your time and don’t force things; don’t fall into predictable patterns; and when you do have to lie, make sure to keep it simple.
South of the Border, West of the Sun
The feel of her hand has never left me. It was different from any other hand I’d ever held, different from any touch I’ve ever known.
A simple change of scenery can bring about powerful shifts in the flow of time and emotions.
Uneasy though I was, I yearned for change. My heart and body both craved this unknown land, a blast of fresh air.
And if I hadn’t met her, I’d still be plugging away at the textbook company, still leaning against the wall in my apartment at night, alone, drinking, and babbling to myself. Makes me realize how limited our possibilities ever are.
“The sad truth is that certain types of things can’t go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can’t go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that’s how it will stay forever.”
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
- The human heart is like a night bird. Silently waiting for something, and when the time comes, it flies straight toward it.
Killing Commendatore
The mountains on the opposite side of the valley were in constant flux, transforming with the seasons and the weather, and I never grew tired of these changes.
Look deep enough into any person and you will find something shining within.
“Sometimes people go through huge transformations,” Menshiki said. “They obliterate the style they’ve worked in, and out of the ruins they rise up again.
“The way I see it,” Menshiki said, “there’s a point in everybody’s life where they need a major transformation. And when that time comes you have to grab it by the tail. Grab it hard, and never let go. There are some people who are able to, and others who can’t. Tomohiko Amada was one who could.”
"Time is the remedy for your concerns. It is the key for all things that possess form. True, time does not last forever, but as long as you have it, it is remarkably efficacious. So look forward to the future, my friends!”
Norwegian Wood
“What makes us most normal,” said Reiko, “is knowing that we’re not normal.”
In the midst of this overwhelming sunset, the image of Hatsumi flashed into my mind, and in that moment I understood what that tremor of the heart had been. It was a kind of childhood longing that had always remained—and would forever remain—unfulfilled. I had forgotten the existence of such innocent, all-but-seared-in longing: forgotten for years to remember that such feelings had ever existed inside me. What Hatsumi had stirred in me was a part of my very self that had long lain dormant. And when the realization struck me, it aroused such sorrow I almost burst into tears. She had been an absolutely special woman.
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 kids. That’s plenty for me. It’s all I want out of life.”
“Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” he said. “Only assholes do that.”
I think you take everything too seriously. 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.
All of us (by which I mean all of us, both normal and not-so-normal) are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. We don’t live with the mechanical precision of a bank account or by measuring all our lines and angles with rulers and protractors. Am I right?
There’s nothing the least bit sinful about it. Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It’s like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. So stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. Life is like that.
That’s why you need to grab whatever chance you have for happiness where you find it, and not worry too much about other people. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a lifetime, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.