Haruki Murakami Quotes

Yes, I do seek solitude, but I am never lonely.

I think that we're all totally isolated beings and always will be.

Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

I was never less alone than when by myself.

The task of the solitary man is to be even more solitary.

Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.

I have many good friends, but I tend to keep to myself anyway. It's odd, doing things and having no one to share them with.

I don't care about a social life.

I like the idea of isolation, I like the idea of solitude. You can be connected and have a phone and still be lonely.

Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.

I remember being alone a lot as a child, and I still love to be alone.

Loneliness is such an omnipotent and painful threat to many persons that they have little conception of the positive values of solitude and even, at times, are frightened at the prospect of being alone.

I make a genuine distinction between loneliness and aloneness. I know what each is like. There are times I'm lonely. But there are also many times when I need to be alone, when I don't want the feeling of someone else in the house other than the cats.

I like the idea of isolation. I like the reality of it. You realize what you are... not that the knowledge is inevitably rewarding.

My 'aloneness' is extremely valuable to me.

We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.

There was something special about being in a strange place, all alone in a mass of people even if you had just screwed up your life, or perhaps especially if you had just screwed up your life.

In those days, I still thoroughly enjoyed the romance I called "by myself"; I didn't know yet how it gets lonely, picks up a sharp edge later on that ruins a day now and then-- ruins more than that, if you're not careful.

Woe unto him that is never alone, and cannot bear to be alone.

I had been alone more than I could have been had I gone by myself.

There are worse places to be than on your own.

She's alone, they kept telling themselves, and surely she danced in no one's arms, yet somehow that seemed to matter less and less. As the night went on, and clarinet and coyote call mingled beyond the lantern light, the magic of their own powder-blue jackets and orchids seemed to fade, and it came to them in small sensations that they were more alone than she was.

But the first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone.

Isolation offered its own form of companionship