Quotes from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star.
It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago.
Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“here she is, all mine, trying her best to give me all she can. How could I ever hurt her? But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“For a while" is a phrase whose length can't be measured.At least by the person who's waiting.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“I was always attracted not by some quantifiable, external beauty, but by something deep down, something absolute. Just as some people have a secret love for rainstorms, earthquakes, or blackouts, I liked that certain undefinable something directed my way by members of the opposite sex. For want of a better word, call it magnetism. Like it or not, it’s a kind of power that snares people and reels them in.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a "Reserved" sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant. Despite the fact that I was sure I'd never see her again.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“No matter where i go, i still end up me. What's missing never changes. The scenery may change, but i'm still the same incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that i can never satisfy. I think that lack itself is as close as i'll come to defining myself.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Have you heard of the illness hysteria siberiana? Try to imagine this: You're a farmer, living all alone on the Siberian tundra. Day after day you plow your fields. As far as the eye can see, nothing. To the north, the horizon, to the east, the horizon, to the south, to the west, more of the same. Every morning, when the sun rises in the east, you go out to work in your fields. When it's directly overhead, you take a break for lunch. When it sinks in the west, you go home to sleep. And then one day, something inside you dies. Day after day you watch the sun rise in the east, pass across the sky, then sink in the west, and something breaks inside you and dies. You toss your plow aside and, your head completely empty of thought, begin walking toward the west. Heading toward a land that lies west of the sun. Like someone, possessed, you walk on, day after day, not eating or drinking, until you collapse on the ground and die. That's hysteria siberiana.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“I wasn't in love with her. And she didn't love me. For me the question of love was irrelevant. What I sought was the sense of being tossed about by some raging, savage force, in the midst of which lay something absolutely crucial. I had no idea what that was. But I wanted to thrust my hand right inside her body and touch it, whatever it was.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“If I stayed here, something inside me would be lost forever—something I couldn't afford to lose. It was like a vague dream, a burning, unfulfilled desire. The kind of dream people have only when they're seventeen.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Lots of different ways to live and lots of different ways to die. But in the end that doesn't make a bit of difference. All that remains is a desert.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“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.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Even castles in the sky can do with a fresh coat of paint.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“But you know Hajime, some feelings cause us pain because they remain.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“I always feel as if I'm struggling to become someone else. As if I'm trying to find a new place, grab hold of a new life, a new personality. I suppose it's part of growing up, yet it's also an attempt to re-invent myself. By becoming a different me, I could free myself of everything. I seriously believed I could escape myself - as long as I made the effort. But I always hit a dead end. No matter where I go, I still end up me. What's missing never changes. The scenery may change, but I'm still the same old incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that I can never satisfy. I think that lack itself is as close as I'll come to defining myself.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Autumn finally arrived. And when it did, I came to a decision. Something had to give: I couldn't keep on living like this.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Everyone just keeps on disappearing. Some things vanish, like they were cut away. Others fade slowly into the mist. And all that remains is a desert.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Because memory and sensations are so uncertain, so biased, we always rely on a certain reality-call it an alternate reality-to prove the reality of events. To what extent facts we recognize as such really are as they seem, and to what extent these are facts merely because we label them as such, is an impossible distinction to draw. Therefore, in order to pin down reality as reality, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created within our consciousness, and it is the very maintenance of this chain that produces the sensation that we are actually here, that we ourselves exist.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“I didn't feel like I was in my own body; my body was just a lonely, temporary container I happened to be borrowing.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Once thing goes wrong, then the whole house of cards collapses. And there's no way you can extricate yourself. Until someone comes along to drag you out.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Inside that darkness, i saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it. The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don't know it is raining.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Look at the rain long enough, with no thoughts in your head, and you gradually feel your body falling loose, shaking free of the world of reality. Rain has the power to hypnotize.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“sometimes i'd wake up at two or three in the morning and not be able to fall asleep again. i'd get out of bed, go to the kitchen, and pour myself a whiskey. glass in hand, i'd look down at the darkened cemetary across teh way and the headlights of the cars on the road. the moments of time linking night and dawn were long and dark. if i could cry, it might make things easier. but what would i cry over? i was too self centered to cry for other people, too old to cry for myself.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“She was, if anything, on the plain side, at least not the type to attract men wherever she went. But there was something in her face that was meant for me alone. Everytime we met, I took a good look at her. And loved what I saw.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“No one could say how long that life would last. Whatever has form can disappear in an instant.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Once she was out of the car and gone, my world was suddenly hollow and meaningless.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“We were, the two of us, still fragmentary beings, just beginning to sense the presence of an unexpected, to be-aquired reality that would fill us and make us whole.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

“I would never see her again, except in memory. She was here, and now she's gone. There is no middle ground. Probably is a word that you may find south of the border. But never, ever west of the sun.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from South of the Border, West of the Sun

About the author

Popular quotes

“Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again.”
― Veronica Roth, quote from Divergent

“My only love sprung from my only hate.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Romeo and Juliet

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!”
― Charlotte Brontë, quote from Jane Eyre

“The greatest ideas are the simplest.”
― William Golding, quote from Lord of the Flies

“We are travelers on a cosmic journey,stardust,swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from The Alchemist

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.