“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.” –Kafka on the Shore
Whether it be about life, death, loss or, most beautiful of all, love, few writers put those emotions into words as well as Haruki Murakami. If you’ve ever delved into any of his novels, you’ll be familiar with the raw and simplistic manner he formulates impossibly relatable characters and makes us fall in love with each with every turn of the page.
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, here are 12 quotes about love from the master himself that will make you believe in it again.
“If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person.” – 1Q84
“That’s what the world is , after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.” – 1Q84
“Two people can sleep in the same bed and still be alone when they close their eyes.” – Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
“Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.” – A Wild Sheep Chase
“You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.” – Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
“One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of true harmony.” – Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.” –Kafka on the Shore
“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.” – Kafka on the Shore
“What matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. When you do that, it is always the first time and the last.” – Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
“There’s no such thing as perfect writing, just like there’s no such thing as perfect despair.” –Hear the Wind Sing
“What happens when people open their hearts?” “They get better.” – Norwegian Wood
“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.” – The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
