All HARUKI MURAKAMI Quotes about “Books”

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
“A deserted library in the morning - there's something about it that really gets to me. All possible words and ideas are there, resting peacefully.”
“I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel”
“When I was little, I had this science book. There was a section on 'What would happen to the world if there was no friction?' Answer: 'Everything on earth would fly into space from the centrifugal force of revolution.' That was my mood.”
“To be able to talk to your heartâ€™s content about a book you like with someone who feels the same way about it is one of the greatest joys that life can offer.”
“If you miss the bus, miss the train, youâ€™d be left behind. So everyone says, letâ€™s get on the train, letâ€™s get on the bus and go faster and get rich... I just didnâ€™t like that kind of lifestyle. I love to read books, to listen to music.”
“Have books â€˜happenedâ€™ to you? Unless your answer to that question is â€˜yes,â€™ Iâ€™m unsure how to talk to you”
“But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning.”
“You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper.”
“I'm a very ordinary human being; I just happen to like reading books.”
“Iâ€™m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, Iâ€™m the type of person who doesnâ€™t find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. Iâ€™ve had this tendency ever since I was young, when, given a choice, I much preferred reading books on my own or concentrating on listening to music over being with someone else. I could always think of things to do by myself.”
“The good thing about writing books is that you can dream while you are awake. If itâ€™s a real dream, you cannot control it. When writing the book, you are awake; you can choose the time, the length, everything. I write for four or five hours in the morning and when the time comes, I stop. I can continue the next day. If itâ€™s a real dream, you canâ€™t do that.”
“Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.”
“I like to read books. I like to listen to music.”
“I didn't have much to say to anybody but kept to myself and my books. With my eyes closed, I would touch a familiar book and draw it's fragrance deep inside me. This was enough to make me happy.”
“I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don't know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying - please let me live until I am finished.”
“There weren't any curtains in the windows, and the books that didn't fit into the bookshelf lay piled on the floor like a bunch of intellectual refugees.”
“Nights without work I spend with whisky and books.”
“I think memory is the most important asset of human beings. It's a kind of fuel; it burns and it warms you. My memory is like a chest: There are so many drawers in that chest, and when I want to be a fifteen-year-old boy, I open up a certain drawer and I find the scenery I saw when I was a boy in Kobe. I can smell the air, and I can touch the ground, and I can see the green of the trees. That's why I want to write a book.”
“The others in the dorm thought I wanted to be a writer, because I was always alone with a book, but I had no such ambition. There was nothing I wanted to be.”
“Reading was like an addiction; I read while I ate, on the train, in bed until late at night, in school, where I'd keep the book hidden so I could read during class. Before long I bought a small stereo and spent all my time in my room, listening to jazz records. But I had almost no desire to talk to anyone about the experience I gained through books and music. I felt happy just being me and no one else. In that sense I could be called a stack-up loner.”
“The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to. We'd just make small talk, play soccer together. When something bothered me, I didn't talk with anyone about it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that's just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis, have to survive on their own.”
“It is the same with anything - you have to learn through your own experience, paying your own way. You can't learn it from a book.”

More Haruki Murakami quote about:

You may also like: