Haruki Murakami Quotes

So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and for what purpose he had been placed in the word.

Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it.

My search not only failed, but I convinced myself that all those who had searched like myself had failed also, and come like me to the despairing conviction that the only absolute knowledge man can possess is this—that life is without a meaning.

All my life I believed I knew something. But then one strange day came when I realized that I knew nothing, yes, I knew nothing. And so words became void of meaning. I have arrived too late at ultimate uncertainty.

Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.

One can't even know what it means to be lost in reality. For instance, it is easy to know whether you are lost or not in the Sahara desert, but to be lost in reality! This is much more complex!

That’s what existence means: draining one’s own self dry without the sense of thirst.

And in truth (as I now see) I had the wish to put off my journey as long as I could. Not for any peril or labour it might cost; but because I could see nothing in the whole world for me to do once it was accomplished. AS long as this act lay before me, there was, as it were, some barrier between me and the dead desert which the rest of my life must be.

Thank you, Sam," he said in a cracked whisper. "How far is there to go?" I don't know," said Sam, "because I don't know where we're going.

His whole life was now summed up in two words: absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog.

He looked at her uncomfortably; blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep.

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I want to see him.

I am more uncertain than I ever was; I feel only the power of life. And I am senselessly empty.

What I mean is, I don't know what I mean.

Sometimes, I wonder what I'm doing here.

I just don't see the light. Where is the light? What am I in this for?

I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

I don't know what I believe in. I try not to think about it. I don't want to think about it.

I just had one of those 'what the hell are we doing' moments.

I think it should be evident by now, but I'm as lost as anyone.

I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it.

We are anxious because we do not know what roles to pursue, what principles for action to believe in. Our individual anxiety, somewhat like that of the nation, is a basic confusion and bewilderment about where we are going.

I am genuinely a bit confused about the world, a little bit bumbling.

Basically, I really love work that puts the reader into a kind of vertigo, into a real doubt, and a beautiful way to convey that, a really perfect metaphor for that, is to make the reader also experience doubt.

She said she was neither happy nor unhappy, and that was why she couldn't go on. Each person knows the extent of their own suffering, or the total absence of meaning in their lives.