Norwegian Wood Quotes

“The world was big and full of weird things and strange people.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“You enjoy solitude?" she asked, leaning her cheek on her hand. "Traveling alone, eating alone, sitting off by yourself in lecture halls..."

"Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment.”

The tip of one earpiece in her mouth, sunglasses dangling down, she mumbled, "'Nobody likes being alone. I just hate to be disappointed.' You can use that line if you ever write your autobiography."

"Thanks," I said.

"Do you like green?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You're wearing a green polo shirt."

"Not especially. I'll wear anything."

"'Not especially. I'll wear anything.' I love the way you talk. Like spreading plaster nice and smooth. Has anybody ever told you that?"

"Nobody," I said.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Do you think you weren’t loved enough?” She tilted her head and looked at me. Then she gave a sharp, little nod. “Somewhere between ‘not enough’ and ‘not at all.’ I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it—to be fed so much love I couldn’t take any more. Just once. But they never gave that to me. Never, not once.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“I look around me sometimes and I get sick to my stomach. Why the hell don't these bastards do something? I wonder. They don't do a fucking thing, and then they moan about it.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“And worse, I was in love. Love with complications.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“It was the age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Nights without work I spent with whisky and books.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“I'm just ordinary guy, ordinary family, ordinary education, ordinary face, ordinary exam results, ordinary thought in my head”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Now, though, that meadow scene is the first thing that comes back to me. [...] And yet, as clear as the scene may be, no one is in it. No one. Naoko is not there, and neither am I. Where could we have disappeared to? How could such a thing have happened? Everything that seemed so important back then - Naoko, and the self I was then and the world I had then: where could they have all gone? It's true, I can't even bring back her face - not straight away, at least. All I'm left holding is a background, pure scenery, with no people at the front.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“قالت: كل شيء واضح لك بخصوص ما تحب وما لا تحب.
قلت: ربما. لهذا السبب لا يحبني الناس. ولم يحبوني أبدا.
قالت: بل لأنك تعلن ذلك. أنت توضح أنك لا تعبأ سواء أحبك الناس أم كرهوك. وهذا يُغضب بعض الناس.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“I'm not going to die with you just because you made lunch for me. Of course, if it had been dinner...”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“These guys are fakes. All they've got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they're so proud of, while sticking their hanse up their skirts. And when they graduate,they cut their hair short and march off to work for Mitsubishi or IBM or Fuji Bank. They marry pretty wives who've never read Marx and have kids they give fancy names to that are enough to make you puke. Smash what educational-industrial complex? Don't make me laugh!”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny and silly. From something like that or it doesn't begin at all.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“لم أعرف لماذا ينبغي إنزال العَلَم ليلا. فالأمة تستمر في الوجود حين تعم الظلمة، وكثير من الناس يعملون طوال الليل: طواقم إنشاء السكك الحديد، وسائقو التاكسيات، ومضيفات البارات، ورجال الإطفاء، والحراس الليليون. ولقد بدا لي من الظلم أن يُنكر على كل هؤلاء الناس الاحتماء بالعَلَم. ولعل هذه القضية لم تحظ باهتمام أحد، فلم يعبأ بها أحد سواي. بل إنني لم أهتم بها في الواقع أيضا. إذ كانت مجرد خاطرة مرت في بالي.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“في منتصف أبريل بلغَت "ناوكو" العشرين. كانت أكبر مني بسبعة شهور، لأنني ولدت في نوفمبر. انتابني شعور غريب عندما بلغَت العشرين. شعرت وكأن الشيء الوحيد الذي له معنى - سواء لناوكو أو لي - أن نظل نراوح بين الثامنة عشرة والتاسعة عشرة. بعد الثامنة عشرة تأتي التاسعة عشرة، وبعد التاسعة عشرة تأتي الثامنة عشرة. لكنها بلغت العشرين. وفي الخريف سأبلغ العشرين أيضا. الموتى فقط يبقون في السابعة عشرة إلى الأبد.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“أخبرني. ما هو أفضل شيء في كون الإنسان غنيا؟
- لا أعرف.
- قدرتك على أن تقول "ليس لدي نقود"! افتراضا، إذا اقترحَت عليَّ صديقة أن نقوم بشيء ما، فيمكنها أن تقول "آسفة ليس لدي نقود". لكن هذا شيء لا أستطيع أن أقوله أبدا إذا كانت الحال معكوسة. لو قلتُ "لا أملك نقودا" فإنها ستعني خقا أنني لا أمتلك نقودا. وهذا شيء محزن. مثلما لو أن فتاة جميلة تقول "أبدو قبيحة اليوم ولا أريد الخروج"، فهذا لا بأس به. لكن لو قالت فتاة قبيحة العبارة نفسها فسيضحك الناس عليها. هذا ما كانت عليه الحال بالنسبة لي.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“No te compadezcas de ti mismo. Eso sólo lo hacen los mediocres.-Nagasawa”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Some people get a kick out of reading railway timetables and that's all they do all day. Some people make huge model boats out of matchsticks. So what's wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?"

"Kind of like a hobby?" she said, amused.

"Yeah I guess you could call it a hobby. Most normal people would call it friendship or love or something, but if you want to call it a hobby, that's OK too.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn't begin at all.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“الصباح هو أفضل أوقات النهار عندي. كأنما كل شيء يبدأ نابضًا من جديد. ويبدأ الحزن يعتريني مع الظهيرة، وحين تنزل الشمس أكرهها. أعيش بالمشاعر نفسها يومًا بعد يوم.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“With Naoko gone, I went to sleep on the sofa. I hadn't intended to do so, but I fell into the kind of deep sleep I had not in a long time, filled with a sense of Naoko's presence. In the kitchen were the dishes Naoko ate from, in the bathroom was the toothbrush Naoko used, and in the bedroom was the bed in which Naoko slept. Sleeping soundly in this apartment of hers, I wrung the fatigue from every cell of my body, drop by drop. I dreamed of a butterfly dancing in the half-light.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Ci eravamo incontrati perché doveva succedere, e anche se non fosse stato quel giorno, prima o poi ci saremmo sicuramente incontrati da qualche altra parte.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Just as you take care of the birds and the fields every morning, every morning I wind my own spring. I give it some thirty-six good twists by the time I've gotten up, brushed my teeth, shaved, eaten breakfast, changed my clothes, left the dorm, and arrived at the university. I tell myself, Ok, let's make this day another good one.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“It's the working class that keeps the world running, and it's the working class that gets exploited. What the hell kind of revolution have you got just tossing out big words that working-class people can't understand.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“May I give you a piece of advise? ... Don't feel sorry for yourself, only arseholes do that.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“It was the usual noontime university scene, but as I sat watching it with renewed attention, I became aware of a certain fact. In his or her own way, each person I saw before me looked happy. Whether they really were happy or just looked it, I couldn't tell. But they did look happy on this pleasant early afternoon at the end of September, and because of that I felt a kind of loneliness that was new to me, as if I were the only one here who was not truly part of the scene.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Las cosas fluyen hacia donde tienen que fluir, y por más que te esfuerces e intentes hacerlo lo mejor posible, cuando llega el momento de herir a alguien lo hieres. La vida es así.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“I found a Bill Evans record in the bookcase and was listening to it while drying my hair when I realized that it was the record I had played in Naoko's room on the night of her birthday, the night she cried and I took her in my arms. That had happened only six months earlier, but it felt like something from a much remoter past. Maybe it felt that way because I had thought about it so often-too often, to the point where it had distorted my sense of time.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“It’s true I’ve got a cold streak. I recognize that. But if they—my father and mother—had loved me a little more, I would have been able to feel more—to feel real sadness, for example.” “Do you think you weren’t loved enough?” She tilted her head and looked at me. Then she gave a sharp, little nod. “Somewhere between ‘not enough’ and ‘not at all.’ I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it—to be fed so much love I couldn’t take any more. Just once. But they never gave that to me. Never, not once. If I tried to cuddle up and beg for something, they’d just shove me away and yell at me. ‘No! That costs too much!’ It’s all I ever heard. So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I was still in elementary school at the time—fifth or sixth grade—but I made up my mind once and for all.” “Wow,” I said. “And did your search pay off?” “That’s the hard part,” said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. “I guess I’ve been waiting so long I’m looking for perfection. That makes it tough.” “Waiting for the perfect love?” “No, even I know better than that. I’m looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.” “I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement. “It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are times in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.” “Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?” “Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. ‘Now I see, Midori. What a fool I’ve been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate mousse? Cheesecake?’” “So then what?” “So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.” “Sounds crazy to me.” “Well, to me, that’s what love is. Not that anyone can understand me, though.” Midori gave her head a little shake against my shoulder. “For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn’t begin at all.” “I’ve never met a girl who thinks like you.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“I have a million things to talk to you about. A million things we have to talk about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood